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Home 9 February 2010

Home, Sweet home, such a nice warm comforting feeling to be back home, its nice to visit places but its nice to be home once more. But being back home its back to the old routine, and that includes Roundhay park in the morning.
Roundhay park is not particularly inviting this morning, it looks like snow, as far as I can tell in the darkness, its bitterly cold, but nothing ventured nothing gained. So out I go, it is snowing! That fine sleety sort of snow, that finds its way down the back of your neck however well covered up you are, but heigh ho off we go. Half way round I begin to resemble a mobile snow man, three quarters around and I am a mobile snow man! I have never felt so glad to get back to the house. No other joggers nor dog walkers nor commuters even obviously no one else idiotic enough to go out in this weather.
Back in the front oh the blessed warmth! Straight back out again the wheelie bin has to go out, the garage door opens with agonising slowness, the wheelie bin weighs a ton, what can I have put in it? Then its back in the warmth again and a cup of tea.
The snow having cleared we go off to pick up the cats they were very reluctant to go to the cattery, now they are equally reluctant to come home. Puddy clings desperately to her blanket, almost depositing Kitten on the floor, but I get her in the basket Fluff wiggles and wiggles but I manage to get her in as well, Kitten glares defiantly at me and its a miracle I don’t get scratched but I finally get them and home. They stalk around the house sniffing everything suspiciously, as if they were away for a month, not a weekend.
Four hundred and six emails, four hundred and six emails, I plough my way through the, deleting merrily away, the mad the bad and the sad all ending up in my inbox, with a few gems encrusted with gold.
Slowly everything is unpacked and put away, a place for everything and everything in its place. I have an awful lot of postcards to scan, and photographs to post, and books to read, its great to be back. There is always a slight disconnect Everything just looks slightly different until I adjust to being home, its a valuable thing it enables you to look dispassionately at the way things are organised and perhaps find a slightly better way. One of the small advantages of travel I suppose, but it really is good to be home. Pheasant, and veg strew, and Curtain Up a old film watched many times and much loved, then bed.

Postcards

1851 Hand press operator at J. D. Burton Britannia pen works, Birmingham

Mornington, Victoria, Australia rather a lovely part of Australia

Postcrossing card: Greenland a beautiful glacier

Postcrossing card from Finland: Mushrooms!

Russian Garfield

Postcrosssing from the US Flags of the United States of America

Obituary: Peter Calvocoressi: writer, publisher and lawyer

Few men can claim to have been more naturally or compellingly cultivated than Peter Calvocoressi or to have embraced so wide a variety of interests and careers. By nature a scholar, by training a lawyer, latterly perhaps best known as a publisher, he was a man in whom impeccable, distinctly old-fashioned good manners were natural complements to an immense erudition, above all a love of books. As important, he was a man of the highest principle, unbendingly committed to the exposure and ending of injustice and inhumanity, above all torture, wherever it occurred. It was entirely in keeping that he was able to play a key role in the formative years of Amnesty International, established in 1961, and a member of whose executive board he was between 1969 and 1971.
He brought to this work not just an instinctive sympathy for the weak and the oppressed but also an unusually wide-ranging knowledge and understanding of international affairs. If this was first honed by his experiences at the Nuremberg war trials, where he principally worked as an adviser to the US prosecuting team, they were immeasurably enhanced by his work at the Royal Institute for International Affairs, where he was a member of the staff between 1949 and 1954 and a member of its council between 1955 and 1970.
It was a natural extension of this work that in 1963 he should have been asked by David Astor to become chairman of the Africa Bureau, an organisation designed to promote greater understanding of African affairs at a time when rapid decolonisation was profoundly altering the character of the continent.
In much the same spirit Calvocoressi began and largely financed a dining club, informally known as the Speakeasy, whose purpose was the airing and better understanding of international affairs. Over the 16 years of its life, the monthly meetings of the Speakeasy attracted a vast array of scholars, journalists, civil servants and others professionally involved in foreign affairs. Its influence, if necessarily intangible, was wide. Fittingly, in 1965, Calvocoressi was appointed Reader in International Relations at the University of Sussex, a position he held for six years.
Among other public appointments, Calvocoressi was a member of the UN Sub-Commission for the Prevention of Discrimination and the Protection of Minorities; of the Council of the Institute for Strategic Studies; and of the Institute of Race Relations. He also served as chairman of the London Library between 1970 and 1973.
His war record was hardly less distinguished. Calvocoressi was at Bletchley Park almost throughout the war as an intelligence officer, latterly as head of the Air Section, his responsibility the assessing and prioritising of decrypted Luftwaffe signals.
However demanding, the experience proved exhilarating. His time at Bletchley Park had one unlooked-for benefit. Tired of subsisting in a series of dingy lodgings, in 1944 he and his wife bought a house, a minor 18thcentury jewel called Guise House. They intended to remain there until the end of the war. In the event they stayed for 36 years.
His time as a publisher, squeezed into an exceptionally productive life, was similarly noteworthy. Between 1954 and 1965 he was a director of Chatto & Windus, then among the most prestigious publishing firms in the country. It was an enormously satisfying period in Calvocoressi’s life. In 1972 he was appointed editorial director of Penguin, by some way the UK’s best-known publisher. The following year he was promoted to publisher and chief executive. Whatever the prestige, he rapidly found himself confronting the realities of modern corporate publishing as the company’s new owner, the financial conglomerate Pearson, increasingly sought to dictate how the business should be run. It proved a doleful experience, and left Calvocoressi pessimistic for the future of a business in which the accountants and marketeers were ever more obviously taking over from those who, for Calvocoressi and other traditionalists, should always be at its heart: the editors.
In conventional terms, Calvocoressi’s career might have said to have ended when he left Penguin in 1976. Yet he remained as active as ever. He was already the author of 11 books, all dealing with a variety of aspects of international affairs. A further eight followed, among them, in 1980, perhaps the best-informed book, certainly the most elegantly written, on Bletchley Park, Top Secret Ultra; and, in 1994, a characteristically precise, if discreet, memoir, Threading My Way. He published World Politics 1945-2000, in his tenth decade; World Politics Since 1945 was published in paperback, in its ninth edition, in 2008. If this prodigious output was in part the result of an unusually long life — itself evidently genetic: his grandmother lived until she was 97, his grandfather and father into their 90s — there is no doubt that it also owed much to a notably happy marriage.
Peter John Ambrose Calvocoressi was born in 1912, in Karachi, to Greek parents. Though brought to England, where he was raised and educated, at 3 months old, he was permanently conscious of these Greek roots, which go far to explain a consistently cosmopolitan note throughout his life. Both his mother and his father’s families were from Chios in the Aegean. It was a strikingly prosperous island, with favoured status within the Ottoman empire. A rising against the Turks in 1822 brought an abrupt end to this idyll. Almost all of those Chiots who were not massacred were forced to flee abroad.
But if their home had been lost, the prosperity remained. Both sides of his family were cotton merchants, and Calvocoressi’s childhood was spent in considerable if understated luxury in a substantial house in the leafy suburbs of Liverpool. In England or not, the Calvocoressis were an emphatically Greek family. As a child, he “saw little beyond other Greek homes”.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article7019655.ece

Letters:

Guardian:

Following the coverage of Miriam O’Reilly’s plan to sue the BBC for ageism (Too old for TV?, G2, 5 February), it is important to note that the issue is not restricted to the BBC. I was recently put forward by a production company to be an eco-expert for a new TV series for Channel 4. The response from Channel 4 had me in howls of laughter. They said not only was I too old (I am 50) but I was also too nice! Is this the first instance of niceism, and can I sue?
Donnachadh McCarthy
London
• Talking of cliches (Letters, 8 February), I was surprised to see Simon Hoggart join the contest to find the most hackneyed of these with his comments on cyclists on pavements, the increasing size of baby buggies and the pavement habits of the iPod generation (Simon Hoggart’s week, 6 February). Perhaps he should add that policemen are getting younger, that examinations are getting easier and that the BBC isn’t what it used to be.
Neil Denby
Denby Dale, West Yorkshire
• Peter Mandelson calls for “belt-­tightening” at universities (Report, 8 February). Khrushchev issued the same call, by telegram, to Nasser, circa 1957. The Egyptian minister of economics telegrammed back: “Send belts.” Or so goes the Sudanese joke.
Nicholas Jacobs
London
• Michael Short (Letters, 6 February) asks why concert audiences in Haydn’s time were more receptive to ­contemporary music. Surely the answer to this is Haydn?
James Langdon
Tintern, Monmouthshire
• Stephanie Kerstein’s prematurely ripening office tomatoes (Letters, 5 February) may or may not be a sign of global warming. They certainly indicate ­probable cause. Turn down the ­thermostat, Steph.
Cllr Jim Forrest
Stubbington, Fareham
•Why sack John Terry? (Capello tells Terry: it’s over, Sport, February 6) With all his experience he surely could have continued as captain of England when we played away from home?
Mick Beeby

Polly Toynbee criticises the Tories for opposing “people’s right to chose their voting system” yet sees Labour’s refusal to give the people the chance to vote for PR as “embracing electoral reform” (Comment, 6 February). In truth, the conduct of both parties provides further evidence that our politicians should not be allowed any say in setting the rules by which we elect them, given their inherent and insoluble conflicts of interest. The same is true of constitutional reform in general.
The referendum we should be having would be on establishing a citizens’ constitutional convention like the recent Canadian provincial citizens’ assemblies on voting reform. These were chosen by lot from members of the public and rebalanced to secure fair representation by gender, age and region; their recommendations were put to a referendum. We should refuse to accept the legitimacy of any constitutional “reforms” not authorised through some such popular process.
Charles Scanlan
London
•  Polly Toynbee is shocked that no MPs have been elected by a majority of their constituents. Many will agree, but there is only one way of achieving this desirable objective: a combination of AV and compulsory voting. No one is yet advocating this change. If Polly gives a lead, many of us would follow. The results for our parliament, our politics and our democracy would be truly revolutionary.
Eric Deakins
London
• So – Gordon Brown proposes the alternative vote system for electing MPs (Comment, 3 February), to add to the first-past-the-post method for electing councillors in England and Wales, the supplementary vote for mayors, list PR for MEPs, mixed member proportional for Scottish parliamentarians, Welsh and London assembly members, and the single transferable vote for Northern Ireland assembly members, councillors and MEPs and Scottish councillors. All that’s missing to complete the full set of mainstream electoral systems in the UK is some kind of two-ballot French system: perhaps David Cameron will oblige and propose the election of local police commissioners in that way. I suppose this will thrill students of electoral systems but can only serve to confuse and confound voters who do not share such anorak delights; and as an exercise in “joined-up government” it fails lamentably. In the words of the late Fred Trueman – I don’t know what’s going on out there!
Bill Hartas
Newcastle upon Tyne
•  At the 11th hour, Gordon Brown advocates AV for the Commons, but fails to link it to the need to complete reform of the Lords. Why not combine the two reforms, using AV to select constituency-based MPs for the Commons and a count of first votes across broad regional constituencies to elect the majority, or all, of the members of the second chamber?
Gerry Small

I was both fascinated and disgusted by reports about BAE (6 February) but was not sure what shocked me most. Was it the bribery? Or the fact that BAE was and is peddling the tools of death? Or the fact that some of the systems they sold went to poor countries who had absolutely no need for such hi-tech equipment.
However, one aspect of your report especially clicked with me: that much of the illicit cash had been passing through intermediaries and bank accounts in various tax havens. If you want to tackle corruption, both in commercial fields and in governmental fields (eg the ministers of poorer countries skimming off money), then you need transparency, something which is made impossible by the existence of tax havens and offshore facilities.
Last year I seem to remember Gordon Brown and Barack Obama pledging to close down tax havens, and so I would be interested to know what progress they have made – especially progress regarding “home-grown” tax havens such as Delaware and the Channel Islands.
Action against these would be a significant coup both in the battle against corruption and the need to stop banks and other commercial organisations hiding their dealings in secretive locations.
Alan Searle
Cologne, Germany
• Some of the evidence heard at the US Senate investigation into overseas corruption (Report, 5 February) was cartoonish in its sleaziness, eg the gushing email from a US lawyer acting for Teodorin Obiang, son of Equatorial Guinea’s president, which read: “Thank you very much for inviting me to the Kandy Halloween party at The Playboy Mansion and getting me the VIP treatment. I had an awesome time. I met many beautiful women, and I have the photos, email addresses and phone numbers to prove it.”
But in spite of the entertainment value of these leaks, the issue at stake is intensely serious. Corruption and state looting, facilitated by irresponsible western banks, lawyers and other professionals, is condemning citizens of developing countries to abject poverty.
Global Witness has been campaigning for reform of banking regulation to prevent banks facilitating corruption, including through the introduction of proper safeguards and monitoring. Our report, The Secret Life of a Shopaholic, revealed how US banks allowed Obiang to bring $75m into the country between 2005 and 2007. Thankfully, the US authorities have started to act: we welcome their proactive response and look forward to hearing the outcome of the Senate investigation.
Shamefully, the UK government is yet to show willing, despite the demonstrated complicity of British banks in corruption. Rather than half-heartedly chiding bailed-out bankers on the size of their bonuses, the UK government should commit to urgently re-evaluate our financial system to ensure we are not providing a safe house for corrupt funds.
Anthea Lawson
Senior campaigner, Global Witness

The job market for young people in ­construction is indeed challenging, to say the least (A failure to do the maths, 2 February). However, in the recession of the 1990s, training budgets were slashed and a devastating skills gap appeared in the sector when the economy shifted from stagnant to buoyant. Our latest forecasts demonstrate that although return to growth will be slow in construction, the sector will be out of recession by 2011. That is why we must continue to train the workforce, so that we have the right workforce with the right skills at the right time.
Mike Bialyj
ConstructionSkills, London EC1
Britain’s got talent
As headmistress of an independent school for girls, I believe the government’s decision to scrap the National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth (Nagty) is completely misguided (And so farewell, 2 February).
While I welcome the fact that additional funding is being made available to support pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds as well as pupils with learning differences, is it not of equal importance to support those pupils who are either academically gifted or talented in music, drama or sport?
Here at Gateways school, we introduced our own scheme in 2006. Pupils identified as gifted or talented are set more challenging tasks, monitored by staff, and given extra independent learning opportunities. Pupils are also encouraged to participate in relevant extra-curricular or enrichment activities.
The Nagty was often described as elitist but that is not the case – in our experience, pupils aspire to participate in the programme and work harder as a result. Just as we should always commit to supporting those with learning differences, we should never be embarrassed about encouraging ­academic excellence.
Yvonne Wilkinson
Headmistress, Gateways school
Harewood, Leeds
Further burden
I was pleased that Neil Merrick’s perceptive article (No such thing as a free course, 26 January) highlighted the fact that individual learners are being squeezed out of further education. Far from the demand-led system espoused by the government, further education has become a finance-led subsidy for employers who don’t want to pay for staff training. Putting a greater burden on individuals to pay for courses will see a further drop in numbers. And, although students in higher education are bearing a larger share of the costs, they have a loan scheme: a choice not available to most FE students.
Martin Freedman
Association of Teachers and Lecturers
London WC2
Tenable positions
Our website reported that lecturers at Leeds university had voted in favour of strike action in protest at job losses:
There are also threats of job losses at Kings College London, where all humanities staff have been told they will have to reapply for their jobs with the aim of making 27 people redundant. The professor of palaeography (the only chair in the UK) and three people in the philosophy department have been issued with redundancy notices. This has been met with shock and disbelief throughout their subjects worldwide. The petition Save Palaeography at Kings has 1,700 signatures; the Facebook group has almost 2,750 members at the time of writing. The Save Philosophy Facebook group has a similar number.
acme

Given the long lead times for building new electricity capacity we should all be concerned that around a quarter of the UK’s electricity generating capacity must be replaced in the next 10 years (Only state intervention can keep the lights on, says Ofgem, 4 February). However, it is even more worrying that plans to replace this shortfall are so poorly advanced. Some 20 gigawatts of new capacity are “under way”, but only 8GW is actually under construction. It would not take much to go wrong for power cuts to become widespread.
However, before politicians start blaming the UK’s liberalised energy ­markets and call for a return to full government control, it is worth remembering that political indecision has contributed greatly to the possibility of an “energy crunch”. Investors in new capacity can deal with market risks, but often find the burden of political and regulatory risk more challenging. Demonising large energy companies over their pricing and threatening windfall taxes may win votes, but it will not bring new capacity on line. Delays in obtaining planning approval for new power stations do not help either.
Graeme Leach
Chief economist, Institute of Directors
• Ofgem’s Damascene conversion to state supervision of the privatised energy industry is a big step in the right direction. This is long overdue in a world of pretend competition that characterises the results of past dogmatic privatisations. However, more radical changes are needed if the new CEGB is given a proper role, including: responsibility for planning and commissioning capacity; reducing the absurd plethora of pricing schemes to a small number of national tariffs; reversing the structure of current tariffs so that low-energy users are no longer penalised; raising the 5% energy VAT to the general rate and phasing in carbon pricing; setting and enforcing energy-saving targets for the energy companies. Above all, dealing with climate change demands that the energy ­industry is controlled by the state and not just influenced by it.
Patrick Newman
Director of IT development, Energywatch 2000-02
• Hidden deep in the appendices of Ofgem’s Project Discovery report is the unnerving admission that four of the six main energy suppliers consider the findings to be too optimistic; uSwitch warns that bills could top £4,000 a year by 2020 (£2,000-a-year fuel bill nears, 4 January). Any massive rise in the cost of energy will not just affect domestic consumers, but all industrial, commercial and public sector consumers as well. Cheap energy has been the lifeblood of our extravagant existence, and the impact of higher costs on the economy and our lifestyles could be profound.
The report focuses on the £200bn of capital investment required. I can’t see the equally vital analysis of likely future gas prices, in the context of rapidly approaching peak oil. While gas is more abundant than oil, their prices are closely linked. As we wean ourselves off fossil fuels, our appetite for electricity will grow. Ground-source heat pumps, battery charging and hydrolising water all need reliable electricity supplies.
We are told that the government will be making announcements on this issue at the time of the budget. Let’s hope that this government and the next one really get to grip with the issue.
Jeffrey Streule
Stewkley, Bedfordshire
•  It is good news that British Gas has dropped the unfair price differential on pre-payment meters, which effectively meant those customers on the least income were often paying the most (Money, 6 February). Charities such as ours have often criticised meter tariffs as aggravating fuel poverty. However, while pre-payment customers will now pay the same as customers paying with cash or cheque, they will still pay more than those able to pay via direct debit. Many poor families aren’t able to do this. Moreover, even with the cuts, there are cheaper suppliers to be found online – but the same vulnerable families are often without access to the internet. British Gas’s initiative is welcome but cannot address this problem alone.
Helen Dent
Chief executive, Family Action

Google’s lawyer David Drummond is quite right (Bring books back to life, 6 February), the majority of books are out of print but in copyright. But whose fault is that? Publishers have for centuries been extending copyright in their own interests. Copyright must be reformed. As James Boyle points out in the Financial Times: “Once upon a time, three things held true. Copyrights were relatively short. You had to renew them (most people did not). You didn’t get one unless you asked. Now none of those holds true. Copyright can last for over 100 years.” So get back to Switzerland and reverse the tendency always to lengthen the “protection” of the Berne convention. And resist Google’s siren calls as it attempts to ­imagine if books “could be made ­available to everyone, everywhere at the click of the mouse”, because if you believe that click isn’t going to cost you dear, you’ll believe anything.
Professor Brian Winston
University of Lincoln
•  Your article contains a number of challenges that should be addressed. One is that those who use the vast range of books in this category – often through libraries or the secondhand book trade – should have their interests represented. We should not be at the mercy of Google and intellectual property lawyers. Another is that we should have a right to influence any exploitation of the various cultures forming our written and linguistic heritage. It is unacceptable that these issues should be determined for us by an American court settlement. Our government should stand alongside Germany and France and require Google to operate here within a framework acceptable to us.
Paul Luscombe
Solihull, West Midlands

Independent:

Harriet Harman has stated that the criminal law relating to theft, false accounting and obtaining by deception “applies to MPs like anyone else” and that before bringing charges against three MPs and one peer relating to their expenses claims the DPP, Keir Starmer QC, will have considered any possible defence. The implication is that they cannot avoid trial by invoking parliamentary privilege.
It appears from your report “You cannot prosecute us, MPs facing theft charges claim” (6 February) that the MPs concerned have been given different advice by “eminent QCs”. Further, the DPP, in his statement announcing the charges, acknowledged that the applicability of any parliamentary privilege claimed “should be tested in court.”
That is not satisfactory. The standing of Parliament will only be further harmed if criminal proceedings are delayed by protracted appeals – possibly up to the Supreme Court – to determine this constitutional issue.
As the Home Secretary said over the weekend, the public would be “aghast” if the MPs could side-step the charges by invoking parliamentary privilege. Since there appears to be an all-party consensus on this, what Parliament should do is to put the matter beyond doubt by enacting a one-clause Bill declaring that matters relating to expenses claims are not “proceedings in Parliament” and that the ordinary criminal courts are to have exclusive jurisdiction. With all-party support, such a measure could be passed into law within one day.
DAVID J LAMMING
Groton, Suffolk
I would like to know why the Government does not use a Bill of Attainder in the case of the MPs accused of false accounting. A Bill of Attainder is a legislative device that allows Parliament to declare guilt and impose punishment on an individual without bringing the matter before the courts. It was first used in 1321, which is before the Parliamentary Privileges Act.
Alistair Watson
Glasgow
Tearful Campbell ducks the question
Alastair Campbell complaining about a BBC interview? It is they who should be complaining.
By appearing to break down, the old master achieved his objective of failing to answer the question. Andrew Marr was not pursuing an agenda. He was seeking to know, like everyone else, why all the intelligence about WMD pointed one way, from UN inspectors to British sources, and Blair chose to take the opposite view. In the process of course Blair lied to Parliament and kept repeating the legality question to Lord Goldsmith until he got the right answer. No wonder Campbell broke down to avoid answering the unanswerable.
What hurts most about all this is that the perpetrator of the subsequent loss of British and Iraqi lives is making a killing on the US lecture circuit as a result, and, in the sickest joke of all, was appointed special peace envoy to the Middle East.
Pete Parkins
Lancaster
Alastair Campbell seemingly close to blubbing on the Andrew Marr show made me feel sick. Hundreds of thousands of innocent people died in Iraq. Campbell and his master Blair are culpable for that. Shed your tears for them. And while you are about it how about some tears for David Kelly?
I really can’t take Labour politicians and spin doctors suddenly finding tears just before a general election.
Peter Moore
Sheffield
During his years in Downing Street Alastair Campbell played a very hard game, sometimes at significant personal cost to those he perceived as opponents. It is hard to believe that his tears on a TV studio couch this weekend will elicit much sympathy from those he has trampled over the years.
Jonathan Wallace
Newcastle upon Tyne
Is Howard Jacobson sure he wants to defend Tony Blair against the charge of mendacity on the grounds of his “sincerity” (Opinion, 6 February)? For what is sincerity? The sincere person is simply one who, taken in by his own act, convinced by his own propaganda, is more interested in defending his self-image that in providing accurate descriptions of the world.
He is, as we say, a “bullshitter”, and as the Princeton philosopher Harry Frankfurt observes, “Bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.”
The Revd Kim Fabricius
Swansea
Antisemitism label for critics of Israel
I was sorry but not surprised to read Jonathan Hoffman’s extraordinary letter (3 February) yet again equating any criticism of Israel with racism.
I once served on an executive body wrongly labelled as anti-semitic for actions taken over a third party’s criticism of Israeli policy. Over some weeks, we received press attention, from Israel to the US, and an avalanche of abusive emails, many of which described the deep personal outrage of each individual sender, in identical wording.
A potential partner, with whom we had hoped to join in a large charitable initiative, withdrew from discussions. Some of our income was put at risk.
Ever since, I have had a grudging understanding of the pusillanimous stance taken by the US and others towards Israeli policies.
Both sides in this awful conflict have committed terrible actions, but one side has been more effective than the other in shaping reactions in north America and to a lesser extent in Europe.
Peter Robb
London N1
Jonathan Hoffman knows of no example of a critic of Israel being incorrectly labelled anti-semitic. I was smeared with the label of antisemitism when I first wrote publicly about the Palestinian ordeal in the mid-1980s.
Those who deploy the charge of antisemitism on critics of Israel risk debasing the coinage. Antisemitism remains too serious an issue to be casually conflated with the Palestine-Israel conflict by those who cannot defend Israel by rational argument.
David McDowall
Richmond, Surrey
Criticism of Israel’s policies, even very harsh criticism, is totally legitimate and has nothing to do with antisemitism (Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, 8 February) . It is being done in Israel itself daily. But critics, Jewish or not, who deny the right of Israel to exist, as the nation-state of the Jewish people, while not opposing any other nation-state, exhibit a clear racist attitude and can be rightfully called antisemites.
Dr Jacob Amir
jerusalem
Right judgment by Cherie Booth
A number of correspondents have criticised Cherie Booth for showing leniency to a convicted man on the grounds that he was a pious Muslim.
When considering sentence, particularly on a first offender, a judge takes into account all their circumstances. If they are essentially rootless, with no familial or social ties to provide a support network, they are unlikely to benefit from a community sentence. (They’re unlikely to benefit from a spell in prison either, but that’s another issue.)
Faith alone with not provide such support, but a faith which links them into a supportive community will, and it is therefore reasonable to consider that when sentencing. Cherie Booth’s judgment was valid but unfortunately worded.
Ann Duncombe
Falkirk
Dinner at the Commons
You report (5 February) that “Charles Kennedy hosted a dinner for Michael Conn Goldsobel solicitors in November 2004″, and that, as a consultant to that firm, I donated £1,002 to the Liberal Democrats on 31 December 2004. I really hate to ruin a conspiracy theory with the facts, but here they are:
The dinner was of the trustees of the Liberal Democrats, with Charles Kennedy as their guest. He therefore sponsored it. As the then secretary to the trustees, I organised it. For administrative convenience, I dealt with the parliamentary authorities from my office, to which address the bill was sent. It was paid pro rata by those attending. Michael Conn Goldsobel had no other connection with the event. My reported donation is in fact the annual aggregation of my monthly standing order to the Liberal Democrats, which way preceded this event and is still in force.
Philip Goldenberg
Woking, Surrey
Thomas Aquinas pronounces on sex
E Jane Dickson (Opinion, 6 February) is correct to maintain that sex for any purpose other than procreation was regarded as sinful by Thomas Aquinas, the reason being that intercourse, conducted naturally and without interference, leads to the birth of a child.
Because, for Thomas, any act of intercourse which was open to procreation is “in accordance with nature” (secundum naturam), rape, pre-marital sex and adultery were the least of the sexual sins because for each a man and a woman were required. The husband’s or father’s property rights were violated, of course, but that is outside the sphere of sexual sins.
What may strike a modern student of Thomas as amazing is that he saw bestiality as less sinful than homosexual sex. For in a sex act between a person and an animal, there is only one sinner, the human agent. A sex act between two men is the worst of the sins “against nature” (contra naturam).
I have yet to find in Thomas either a mention or a condemnation of lesbian sex, because there is no misuse of sperm.
Dr Michael JOHNSON
BRIGHTON
Given the reputedly hardline approach of the Pope on the question of “equality”, and the forthcoming canonisation of Cardinal Newman, it will be interesting to see what gloss is put upon the sexuality of “England’s leading convert”.
Though Newman was probably a life-long celibate, his friendship and love for Richard Froude, and subsequently Ambrose St John, his companion of some 32 years, would place him in the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” section of the papal battalions.
Christopher Dawes
London W11
Brutalist car park defies bulldozers
The article “Battle to save Britain’s Brutalist buildings from the bulldozer” (6 February) made interesting reading but contained one inaccuracy. The Gateshead Get Carter multi-storey car park did not come down last year. Some of it came down but then demolition was stopped in the autumn.
It had been given an initial demolition date of the end of 2007. Great cheers went up when demolition finally started in 2009. But now Gateshead residents look on in frustration that this half demolished monumental monstrosity continues to blight the town centre. At current rate of progress, I fear it will fall down before the demolition teams give it the final push.
Dr Jonathan Wallace
Liberal Democrat Councillor
Gateshead
Eurozone solidarity
“Pigs”, eh? It’s good to know who your friends are when things get tough.
Peter Harvey
Barcelona, Spain
Alive and hoping
Thank you for publishing Mary Wakefield’s article “Don’t switch off the will to live” (6 February). My 26-year-old niece Michelle Wheatley has locked-in syndrome after suffering a stroke last year. She very much wants to live, as she has a young son and daughter. If anyone has doubts about this they should visit her website and see how this remarkable young woman is fighting to live as normally as possible at the care home she is in. Her dearest wish is to one day live in her own home with her partner and children.
Patricia rawding
Manchester
Nearer home
No, Speke airport was not named after the explorer John Stanning Speke, as your travel quiz suggests (Magazine, 6 February). Speke was first mentioned in the Doomsday Book and is an area of Liverpool where the airport was built.
Nigel Rees
LONDON W8
Wrong answer
I see from Brian Crinion’s letter (8 February) that the quality of the Tory Party’s polls has not risen since the 2005 election campaign. At that time they polled me by telephone. The first question was: “Which of these issues is most important to you: asylum, taxation or crime?” I replied: “Asylum – there’s not enough of it.” From that point on the questioner didn’t seem to know quite how to deal with me.
Laurie Marks
Cambridge
Tough glasses
We were given a set of four Crystolac glasses (letter, 4 February) for a wedding present in 1948. They are marked on the bottom with one dot over five dots, presumably signifying manufacture in 1946. Three have survived and are in daily use.
Howard Fuller
ABINGDON, Oxfordshire

Times:

Sir, Memory is fallible, but I seem to remember being taught, more than 50 years ago, that parliamentary privilege, which may of course be invoked by individual members of either House when faced with civil or criminal proceedings, nevertheless belongs to Parliament and not to the Member (letters, Feb 8). If this is correct, then two things follow. First, Parliament can waive it. This would not require legislation; a simple resolution of the appropriate House would be sufficient.
Second, its Privileges Committee could rule whether any proposed proceedings would constitute a breach of privilege. It could not, of course, extend the scope of the privilege, but it could limit its application.
Waiving the privilege would not constitute a breach of the Member’s human rights, since it is a privilege not a right and (if the premise is correct) does not belong to him. Nor would it amount to a retrospective change in the law, since it would not be retrospective but affect a trial that has not yet taken place, and would not change the law but give effect to it.
Lord Millett
House of Lords
Sir, If MPs persist in trying to use the archaic terms in the 1689 Bill of Rights to claim parliamentary privilege for their alleged offences, then perhaps Parliament should use the equally archaic “Bill of Attainder” procedure to counter it, as referred to by Frank Mattison (letter, Feb 8). Such a procedure would have the benefit of showing the public that Parliament was serious about cleaning up the expenses saga and could be carried out swiftly with the agreement of all political parties.
Traditionally attainder was used against those who had committed treason or other acts contrary to the good of the Sovereign or the State, the latter of which arguably covers the claiming of expenses from the public purse to which you were not entitled. That such an Act of Attainder usually included the death penalty is not an issue today.
If the accused MPs persist with the ancient defence of privilege then use an equally ancient law against them.
Alan Holden
Guildford, Surrey
Sir, Can we now assume that if an MP takes a revolver into the Commons and murders the Prime Minister, he or she can claim freedom from prosecution?
Jack Aspinall
Holt, Norfolk
Redmond McDonagh wrote:
Great idea Peter Cressall!

It would be fun to see how quickly English law on defamation could be reformed.

A win-win. No more libel tourism.
February 9, 2010 1:18 AM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Peter Cressall wrote:
I am afraid, Lord Millet, that you are missing the point by regarding tradition as immutable. Parliamentary Privilege is an anachronism, dating from a time when the monarch represented a real threat to Parliament. This is no longer the case, and it should therefore be abolished forthwith, placing all Members under the same laws as govern the rest of us.

Sir, Griff Rhys Jones (“A slap in the face for Constable country”, Opinion, Feb 6) is not alone in calling for high-tension cables to be buried like other services, such as gas. However, he has ignored a serious technical problem.
Overhead cables are relatively light, and kept well clear of the ground, yet carry potentials of thousands of volts using air as an insulator. Placed underground, they require extensive cladding to resist this voltage, Worse still, the alternating current (AC) results in very significant reactive losses.
Where existing lines have been aesthetically buried under the Pennines and Chilterns, they require substantial cooling arrangements. Undersea, the losses are prohibitive and so conversion to direct current (DC), and back again, is necessary. AC distribution is retained on land because it is simpler to generate and transform between the high voltage grid (efficient) and the low-voltage consumer network (which is safe).
The decisions made 100 years ago were neither hasty nor ill conceived — the merits of AC and DC were fiercely debated on both sides of the Atlantic, and AC ultimately offered the simplicity and economy of transformers, against cumbersome mechanical rotary converters for DC.
DC grids are being given trials in countries where new, inherently DC power sources, such as photovoltaic cells are feasible on a large scale, but even partial conversion in Britain could require thousands of local sub-stations to be replaced by new converters.
Just “£1 on everybody’s electricity bill”? I don’t think so.
J. Roger Knight
Reading, Berks
Thomas Hope wrote:
Neil’s comment and Malleus’ last sentence are right.
In Holland they originally decided that everything is underground because it is a small country, heavily populated and the ground is mostly sand.
DC is now much easier to convert back and forth to AC but our country is not the size of Russia and the choice to transmit large amounts of electricity by DC or underground is a major financial decision which will not fly alone, except for example where unique natural beauty is at stake.
Celebrity amateurs need to get better advisors
February 8, 2010 11:11 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Neil Protheroe wrote:
In the event of any of the changes discussed being implemented, can anyone reassure me that my George Foreman Grill will still work OK?
February 8, 2010 10:23 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Peter Cressall wrote:
Roger Knight does not tell the whole story. Of course A.C. generation is a must, but very high voltage transmission presupposes considerable distances to justify it. Over these distances, D.C. has significant advantages, such as the absence of the reactive losses mentioned, the absence of skin effect, etc. Conversion to D.C. and back, with modern technology, is both practical and already adopted over long distances.
February 8, 2010 8:54 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Malleus Sacerdotes wrote:
Similar arguments can be presented to show that the fragmentation of electricity supply into smaller, independent microgeneration plants will be highly inefficient and wasteful.

Our modern national grid transmission system was introduced by the government after the Weir Commission in 1926. It brought great economies of scale and security of supply. Electrical engineering is not a field for amateur dabblers.

Sir, Far from the traditionalist view that the ordination of women bishops will trigger an exodus of many thousands from the Church of England, it is altogether probable over time that the reverse will prove to be the case (“Church of England to go ahead with women bishops”, Feb 8).
The Church is finally reflecting, both in its higher as in its junior echelons, the demographic of society. As well as providing feminine aspects of pastoral care throughout its ministry, it might well attract younger women, with their children, back into a church that not only badly needs them but also longs to provide for them and which has become other than in a few noteable areas aged, arthritic and stultified.
There are no other professions (medicine, law, management, politics etc) where the progress of women to the most senior positions, despite any difficulties along the way, has proved other than a resounding success and an endorsement of genuine egalitarianism. Self-styled “traditionalists” need to accept that this ship, which has long since weighed anchor and set sail, has by now left them far behind.
Michael Stewardson
Bridgwater, Somerset

Thomas Hope wrote:
I would applaud more women priests in the Anglican Church although I have come, after many years, to consider church hierarchy to be little better than politicians.
I do however consider that that the letter writer’s use of “arthritic” to be extremely offensive, regardless of what sense he uses it and he will understand the offence should he ever become so.
February 8, 2010 11:23 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Delilah Dimplebottom wrote:
An interesting study in Switzerland found that the strongest indicator of church attendance by succeeding generations was not women taking their children to church (a mere 2%) but fathers taking their children to church (55%). So if the benefit of this is that it attracts women/mothers at the expense of men, we have about one generation to go before total collapse.

In any case, I haven’t noticed that CofE churches are particularly short of women, but for decades now they have been short of men, who don’t like feminised services and touchy-feely theology.
February 8, 2010 10:53 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Trudi Morris wrote:
I can’t really see how female Bishops will encourage women and children into Church. That justification was used to bring in women vicars. It didn’t happen and the people it drove away have yet to return.

February 8, 2010 9:47 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Peter Cressall wrote:
To suggest that people will be attracted back into the Church (that is, those that have left), will not have any impact on the vast majority who have never been, except for christenings, weddings and funerals. One might as well command the waves to stop advancing. This was tried once a thousand years ago, without notable success.
February 8, 2010 9:09 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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malcolm davis wrote:
Do not be so “smug” as to assume traditionalists are in the minority.Many of them will march with their feet, as will I over this issue.The anglican church will split right down the midled over this assault on traditionalist teachings in the church…

Sir, Since 2004 GPs have had mountains of work, previously done in hospitals, dumped on them (Out-of-hours GPs, letter, Feb 8). It would cause a big disruption to GP services if they were now to add responsibility for out-of-hours cover.
The public cannot expect GPs to work day and night. When I retired in 2006 I was doing 70-plus hours per week of in-hours work. Even hospital doctors are restricted to 52 hours per week by the European Working Time Directive.
If a five-doctor practice took back out-of-hours responsibility it would be the equivalent of losing one doctor for the whole of each week. What would happen to that GP’s surgeries and clinics?
Even if some doctors were foolish enough to restart doing out-of-hours and continued to do their previous in-hours work, would you like to be seen by a tired doctor? It is quite easy to misplace a decimal point when calculating a dose of morphine when tired.
Dr Martin F. Seely
Worsley, Lancs
Sir, My daughter is a vet. She works long hours daily — for less pay than a GP — and covers weekends, nights and Bank Holidays, including Christmas Day and new year, as a matter of routine, and her patients are totally unable to tell her what ails them. This is simply what is expected of her and thousands like her: they may not like it, but they do not complain, and their patients and the patients’ owners appreciate them for it.
In the past, GPs used to do the same: why is it that they cannot (or rather will not) do so nowadays? As Wilfred Attenborough (letter, Feb so succinctly states, they are paid enough.
Jennifer Bew
Guildford, Surrey

Mark Horner wrote:
I have been proud to be part of an amazing service for most of my career. There was in place a network of GPs such that a person could lift a phone and if appropriate receive a visit from their personal physician within the hour, day or night, year round. This was provided for a very low fee, what it now costs us to opt out. It was very satisfying work but at great cost to personal and family life. The system wasn’t sustainable for many reasons including changes in the GP workforce, increasing expectation and abuse by a small number of patients.

Our present system has its faults but can be improved. What is certain is that the previous service commitment is incompatible with primary care as currently organised. I doubt it will ever return.
February 8, 2010 11:32 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Jen Wirral wrote:
I wouldn’t even mind being seen by a doctor.

On the very rare occasions I have to try and get an appointment they’re usually all full up. It’s got so that they just phone now.

February 8, 2010 9:12 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Patricia Thornton wrote:

I wouldn’t dream of calling my GP out-of-hours unless it was absolutely necessary, however, if I ever felt the need I would much rather be seen by a tired doctor who knew me, than a complete stranger who had no knowledge whatsoever of my medical history.

Sir, Obtaining evidence requires time and money (“We might err, but science is self-correcting”, Opinion, Feb 8). Research funding in the UK is increasingly channelled to predetermined ends, and those who win in the fierce competition for research council grants tend to be those who endorse them.
Barriers to sceptical inquiry are augmented by a “peer review” system in which the worth of a research proposal, and its chance of receiving support, are assessed by those who have succeeded previously. Expert opinion rarely looks sympathetically on those who challenge the orthodox view. University autonomy is diminishing as institutions vie with each other to demonstrate “impact”, and science departments are rebadged with shallow names in order to advertise their relevance to assumed needs of society. Vital freedom, safeguarded by tenure, is replaced by a ruthless system of targets, the most important being “Bring in grant income or you’re out”.
Scepticism used to be what we were all about. Now, it’s “grantsmanship”.
Professor John F. Allen
Professor of Biochemistry
Queen Mary, University of London

D K wrote:
Professor, thank you for speaking out, I hope you do not suffer for it.
I do worry that we are passing into a post-scientific age, where religious or political dogmas are enforced.

Sir, Charles Beamish (letter, Feb suggests that one of Toyota’s problems is “relying on too complex a unit for such a simple operation as operating the carburettor”. However, in the majority of modern cars, the carburettor has gone the way of the man with the red flag.
Unfortunately, fuel injection systems inevitably require more complex controls than a simple cable opening and closing a butterfly valve. When they work, fuel injection systems are, perhaps, 10 to 20 per cent more fuel efficient than carburettors. When they fail they are probably 10 to 20 times more costly to repair.
Ian Danks
Tunbridge Wells, Kent
Sir, Charles Beamish praises the reliability of his 170-year-old door lock, “which has functioned without fault all that time”.
How can he be so sure?
Alan Johnson
Alton, Hants

Thomas Hope wrote:
Modern cars are of course streets ahead in performance and reliability – but who can fix them?
My old Cortina and Volkswagen 411 may have occasionally broken down on holiday in Europe but I could always get them going again. This because I and my mates did all our own servicing from setting tappets to replacing filters, to twin-carb balancing to points and plugs replacement.
We can not afford the computers these days.
February 8, 2010 11:32 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Andrew Knowles wrote:
I am afraid that a car with a carburettor would have little chance if built new today, of meeting EC emissions regulations. Even if it could, the road tax, based on CO2 emissions would be prohibitively expensive. This is why manufacturers design complex fuel injection systems.
Modern cars are much more economical to operate in terms of fuel use, if not in costs to maintain, and are less polluting as a result, particularly important in cities.
Whilst there appears to be a safety related issue here with certain designs of accelerator pedals apparently sticking – it is worth remembering that nearly all cars used to have an accelerator cable (similar in construction to a brake cable on a bicycle), which physically linked the accelerator to the carburettor or to the throttle in the early fuel injection systems. Has everyone forgotten that cables used to fray and stick – so simple is not always better.
February 8, 2010 9:19 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Paul Padley wrote:
Ian Danks you are so right as I know to my cost. When my ‘old’ Peugeot 106 worth about £1000 kept cutting out it turned out I didn’t need a £100 reconditioned carburettor I needed a £500 fuel injection unit! My other car’s an MGB!
February 8, 2010 9:01 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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John Francis wrote:
@Alan Johnson,
Presumably his ancestors’ last dying wish was that they had kept the doorlock functioning throughout their lifetime, and to see to it that they carried on the good work.

Sir, I am not surprised we are having a job dealing with the Taleban; we keep telling them what we are going to do next (report, Feb 8).
John Tompsett
Seaford, E Sussex

Peter Cressall wrote:
Oh, so we know that, do we, Mr Tompsett?

Sir, Your guide to the Japanese bow (Feb 6), on stances for corporate failure, failed to mention the “burying one’s head in the sand” position.
Andrew Hooper
Chichester, W Sussex

Thomas Hope wrote:
Having lived in Japan, Andrew’s described position is indeed valid. The worry is that when you come out of that position you may have to do something fatal.

Telegraph:

SIR – I wonder how many businesses in Britain have more than 600 employees, at least half of whom have been indulging in rampant expenses irregularities.
I suspect none, as either they would be in receivership or their auditors would refuse to sign off their accounts, thereby bringing them under serious investigation by HM Revenue and Customs.
 
The Marquess of Aberdeen
Ellon, Aberdeenshire
SIR – David Cameron’s threats against the three accused Labour MPs (report, February suggest that he fails to understand the rule of law.
As a retired parliamentary counsel, I am well aware that this insists that a man is treated as innocent unless proved guilty. It also requires a man to be tried under the law prevailing at the time of his alleged offence, not some later manipulation of it.
Francis Bennion
Budleigh Salterton, Devon
SIR – It is worth noting that, at the Commons vote in July 2008 which rejected proposals to police their expenses, of the 75 Conservative MPs who turned up to vote, 21 voted with Labour. The majority was only 28.
Michael Dommett
Alton, Hampshire
SIR – Three MPs accused of theft say they “refute” the charges. I hope they can, but they need to learn that refute is not a synonym for reject. Refutation is a process of logical rebuttal, not an act of denial.
People who cannot master English cannot effectively scrutinise legislation.
Professor Ged Martin
Shanacoole, Co Waterford, Ireland
SIR – After an election, how long will it take the new intake to become as tainted as most of the current crop of MPs?
Derek Duly
Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex
SIR – You are correct to condemn MPs who fail to “get the message” in relation to expenses (Leading article, February 6). But as long as our entire constitutional framework is based on unwritten convention, legislators will always manipulate the system to their advantage.
Matt Showering
Bristol
SIR – For National Anti-Corruption Day here in Malawi last Friday, the Rev Kenani Phiri, secretary of the Malawi Council of Churches, said: “Corruption is a symptom of a decaying society”. Food for thought.
Peter Pearson
Lilongwe, Malawi
SIR – If the present Government cannot sort out MPs’ expenses, how can we possibly expect it to sort out the economy, which we all know is in dire trouble?
Roger Wagstaff
Stokenchurch, Buckinghamshire
Broadband robbery
SIR – British Telecom is laying the latest fibre-optic cables for super-fast Broadband to the Olympic village in Portland, Dorset, for 2012 but is seriously considering removing them and the facility for local people afterwards.
The Government is promising to give the British population fast broadband, but it is hard to believe the promise when we hear of such things as this.
Foreigners will get the facility that we local people cannot have, and will be left with the false impression that we are
up-to-date.
Our broadband speed is 1.6Mps at maximum. It is impossible to stream video well and the whole process of internet use is very slow. Are we in Dorset unique or are others suffering such treatment?
R. J. Wells
Weymouth, Dorset
Mr Brown’s Greek lesson
SIR – If Gordon Brown is prepared to preach a “tough love” message to Greece and demand dramatic cuts in spending from them (report, February 8), why does he not have the honesty to preach a similar message to this country, given that our public finances are in such a bad state?
Graham Senior-Milne
Norham, Northumberland
The feline IQ test
SIR – J. A. Smart (Letters, February may be correct that cat owners are cleverer than dog owners, and owners of neither cleverer still, but what if you own both cat and dog or, even more problematic, two of one and one of the other.
How intelligent is that?
Professor Julian Verbov
Liverpool
SIR – It matters not a jot to us whether cat owners are more intelligent than dog owners or vice versa.
My wife and I have two adorable Persian cats and one delightful Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.
Bruce Chalmers
Goring-by-Sea, West Sussex
Wyatt Earp’s gun-play
SIR – Wyatt Earp’s “mythical” gun (Letters, February with its 18-inch barrel is on display for all to see at the old Tombstone courthouse-museum in Arizona.
I have seen it myself and heard the story of its use by Earp. He deftly got round the difficulty that its excessive length would have given him in having to be quicker on the draw. He simply coshed his quarry from behind, well ahead of any stand-off.
Paul Keenan
Dublin
Captive constituency
SIR – I doubt if many prisoners were in the voting habit when free, so withdrawing voting rights is not much of a punishment. But restoring them could be an important part of rehabilitation, and as no group is so controlled by the state as prisoners, logically there is no group more deserving of representation.
Since the prison population is roughly the same as that of a geographical constituency, let’s have one constituency of prisons, with one MP to represent all prisoners. The turnout would probably be impressively high, and there may well be an inside candidate before much longer.
William Barter
Towcester, Northamptonshire
Booze-blighted region
SIR – As Directors of Public Health in the North East, we call upon the Government to introduce a minimum price per unit of alcohol to tackle cheap drink, which is having a devastating effect on our region.
Research carried out by Balance, the North East Alcohol Office, reveals that across our region, alcohol is available for as little as 12p a unit, cans of lager for just 22p and a two-litre bottle of cider priced at less than a loaf of bread.
Armed with £6.24 – the average level of pocket money in Britain – young consumers can buy enough alcohol to drink twice the recommended daily limit for an adult male, every day of the week.
We know that low prices are linked to greater consumption. We also know that the more we drink, the greater the health risk. In the North East, alcohol-specific hospital admissions are 62 per cent higher than the national average.
The Government has argued that it does not wish to penalise moderate drinkers. Nor do we. A unit price of 50p means a minimum of around £1.50 for a pint in the pub or £4.50 for a supermarket bottle of wine. Is this too much to pay to reduce deaths from alcohol-related causes by a quarter and save the country £1 billion every year in alcohol-related costs?
The Government must act quickly and decisively. As with smoking, politicians who take a lead in combating alcohol harm may find they command the public’s respect and support as a result.
Meng Khaw
Director of Public Health, North Tyneside and Newcastle
Sue Milner
Director of Public Health, Northumberland
Sue Gordon
Executive Director of Public Health, North of Tyne
Nonnie Crawford
Director of Public Health, Sunderland
Alyson Learmonth
Director of Public Health, Gateshead
Marietta Evans
Director of Public Health, South Tyneside
Miriam Davidson
Director of Public Health, Darlington
Anna Lynch
Acting Executive Director of Public Health, County Durham and Darlington
Louise Wallace
Director of Public Health, Hartlepool
Ruth Hill
Director of Public Health, Stockton
Peter Heywood
Director of Public Health, Middlesbrough
Six Nations style
SIR – How refreshing it was to see the England rugby team sporting the “proper” plain white jersey with red rose, free of
sponsor’s clutter, for the Six Nations match against Wales.
Jeremy Tozer
Teignmouth, Devon
SIR – Does anybody actually enjoy the triumphalist music played after a points score?
Richard Brockman
Winchester, Hampshire
English-language skills of doctors from the EU
SIR – Air-traffic controllers have to take exams in written and spoken English, even when it is their native language.
Why then, 10 years after Dr Liam Fox expressed concern in the House of Commons about the language skills of EU doctors, do we find ourselves still having this debate?
Amelia McCourty
Tarporley, Cheshire
SIR – I was first expertly treated by an Indian doctor in hospital many years ago after a football injury. More recently, as a cancer sufferer, I have come to appreciate very much the standards shown by such doctors in NHS hospitals.
Indian doctors have trained under the British system and have a good grasp of English. The rush to favour EU-trained doctors instead is a step too far. The death of just one patient (report, February 5) suggests that, for health services, EU precedence should rejected.
Geoffrey Allen
Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire

Irish Times:

George Lee’s resignation
Madam, – George Lee’s resignation is an act of disloyalty to the 27,000 people who voted for him and to the hundreds of people who canvassed for him (Breaking News, February 8th). More than those, it is an act of gross betrayal to Fine Gael, which invested faith, time, and great energy in him.
Mr Lee’s experience as a television economics reporter and his nine months as a TD do not entitle him to a senior economic role in a party of 31,000 members. Fine Gael secured 605,333 votes in last summer’s local elections.
Yes, he is a qualified economist. But Fine Gael Senator Eugene Regan has vastly superior academic economic qualifications. Mr Lee’s former Fine Gael Oireachtas colleagues Joe McHugh TD, Kieran O’Donnell TD, and Senator Paschal Donohue are qualified economists. And his former colleagues Seán Barrett TD, Frank Feighan TD, and John Perry TD have vast practical understanding of commerce.
In any event, he was given ample scope in debate, through his position as chairperson of the Fine Gael Economic Forum, through his membership of the pre-Budget Fine Gael Business Roadshow, and through his weekly attendance at meetings of the Fine Gael Parliamentary Party.
There will be a few days of media heat, and the same tired anti-Fine Gael media voices will refrain, yet again, that this has “fatally undermined the Kenny leadership”.
When the political lava cools, who will be buried beneath? – Yours, etc,
PAUL HICKEY,
Castlecoote,
Co Roscommon.
Madam, – As a student who spent many hours campaigning for former Deputy Lee, I am frankly dismayed at his desertion of the hope he supposedly offered us. It is noteworthy that I never received a letter of thanks for my efforts; perhaps one of apology would now suffice for the lack of effort on his behalf. – Yours, etc,
JM O’DONNELL,
Kungshamra,
Solna, Sweden.
Madam, – It was with surprise that I learnt of George Lee’s resignation from the Dáil and the Fine Gael party after just nine months.
Did he really expect he would be able to influence any party, or any policy, in just nine months? I think his expectations were too high. I can’t recall a single person in the past 20 years elected to the Dáil at the first time of asking that received a prominent party position within such a short space of time – why would Mr Lee be different?
Perhaps if he had persevered he would in time have found a more prominent role within Fine Gael. I think Mr Lee should have seen out his term before reaching a decision.
Nevertheless, it is a great pity that such an obviously intelligent man who could have offered so much is no longer in a position to do so. – Yours, etc,
JOHN WHYTE
Shannon Park,
Ennis, Co Clare.
Madam, – In the recent past, we’ve had George Lee who didn’t get on with his party, Pat Kenny who couldn’t get on with his neighbours and Charlie Bird coming back to us because he couldn’t make friends with anyone in America! What do they teach them in RTE? – Yours, etc,
GARRY CLARKE,
Ghan Road,
Carlingford, Co Louth.
Madam, – What is George Lee thinking of? Surely he did not expect to change or even influence in any way the policies of a party which has been in existence since long before he was born?
He has been a member of the Fine Gael party for less than a year and already he is throwing in the towel. A man of his intelligence and experience must know that things do not change overnight. Like all new employees he must take his place and serve his time.
Did he expect to be be the “saviour” of the economy in such a short space of time? What a disappointment he has turned out to be. – Yours, etc,
BERNADETTE EDGEWORTH,
Woodview,
Lucan, Co Dublin.
Madam, – Will our political parties ever learn? Parachuting in celebrity candidates does not work. Fine Gael in particular has been doing this at local, national and European level over the past decade. I wish George the best in the future. – Yours, etc,
PAT WHELAN,
Petitswood Manor,
Dublin Road,
Mullingar,
Co Westmeath.
Madam, – George Lee is a person of enormous integrity who I admired greatly during his time with RTÉ. I was very disappointed when he joined Fine Gael as I felt that his RTÉ role was much more significant than any opportunity that might arise within the party and that he would be compromised by it and the Dáil.
However, his resignation fully restores my faith in him as a person of great integrity and ability and I hope that he will revert to a key reporting position at RTÉ. – Yours, etc,
BRIAN FLANAGAN,
Ardmeen Park,
Blackrock, Co Dublin.
Madam, – Could George Lee’s departure from Fine Gael be the enda Kenny? – Yours, etc,
SÉAMUS PHELAN,
Montrose Crescent,
Artane, Dublin 5.
Limerick regeneration ‘a mirage’
Madam, – Finally a Government Minister tells the truth (Front page, February 6th) when Willie O’Dea admits that the €1.7 billion for Limerick regeneration will not be forthcoming.
This news will be devastating for the countless families in Limerick’s troubled estates who had looked forward to a bright new future free from crime gangs, arson, murder, violence and anti-social behaviour.
Many will recall the images of the fleet of shiny black Mercedes cars sweeping into the deprived estates of Moyross and Southill and Ballinacurra Weston and St Mary’s Park all heralding a new dawn of enlightened local government and a vindication of the rights of people living in local authority housing.
Sadly the dream was only a mirage. The hope raised among the residents merely words spun by well-paid spin doctors.
The tragedy is made all the more depressing by the comments of the leaders of the failed regeneration effort saying that private investment will come to the rescue. There is no way that private investment will make up the shortfall.
In effect, private investment will engage in what can only be described as an ethnic cleansing exercise, where families in local authority housing are evicted to make way for new private marinas, waterside apartments and leisure centres.
This awful image of privilege over people is the sad reality of regeneration in Limerick today. All those who promised false hope to people living with crime and violence should hang their heads in shame. – Yours, etc,
SEAN O’NEILL,
Quinn’s’ Cottages,
Prospect,
Limerick.
Representing the Irish at home
Madam, – So Minister for Foreign Affairs Mícheál Martin feels the €4.4 million spent on the refurbishment of the Ottawa residence of the Irish Ambassador to Canada was worth it, stating that Ireland must be well represented abroad.
Any chance the Government might spend money to represent the Irish at home – schools, roads, health? Wishful thinking, I know. – Yours, etc,
TONY MARGIOTTA,
Fairyhouse Lodge,
Ratoath,
Co Meath.
Losing out on free pre-schooling plan
Madam, – As Jamie Smyth reported (Home News, February 4th), it is welcome that the new Early Childhood Care and Education scheme will benefit 51,000 children this year.
However, if, like my daughter, you were one of 18,000 children born in quarter three of 2007 you will not be be able to avail of the Government’s “generous” new scheme in September 2010, despite being eligible to start primary school a year later.
Minister of State at the Department of Health and Children, Barry Andrews recently confirmed that there are no plans to review the age limits of the scheme; so tens of thousands every year will lose out on the developmental, and indeed financial benefits of what should be a very positive initiative for all children and their parents. – Yours, etc,
ANNA VISSER,
Monkstown Grove,
Monkstown, Co Dublin.
Appalling state of hospital
Madam, – My sister-in-law is a long-term patient St Ita’s Hospital, Portrane, Co Dublin. I can attest to the appalling physical conditions in that hospital which would not be tolerated in any general hospital. Patients are living in conditions that are lacking in basic humanity and dignity. In addition to the reported move to Beaumont Hospital, houses have been built in the grounds of St Ita’s to provide accommodation for some patients. These houses, built to a very high standard, have been fully furnished and fitted for many months.
The move from the old hospital has been continually deferred due to staffing issues. In the past few days I have become aware that some new staff are to be hired on 40-day contracts. This is hardly auspicious. This Government, which can find endless money to bail out banks and other culprits for the current economic crisis, should hang its head in collective shame.
Finally, I cannot conclude without paying tribute to the staff who work in a heroic and humane manner in truly atrocious conditions, – Yours, etc,
OLIVIA LOMBARD,
North Avenue,
Mount Merrion,
Co Dublin.
Press, privacy and the Lillis trial
Madam, – As a career photographer since the mid 1960s, it is with sadness I write that it is now urgently necessary for the Government to introduce a privacy bill. The behaviour of some people who call themselves photographers and videographers – usually attached to the tabloid press – but also to some of the so-called “respectable media”, is depressing and sometimes just disgusting.
The Lillis trial is just the latest in a long list of recent judicial events that have attracted these toerags! Invasive attempts to photograph a motherless 17-year-old girl with her loving father during his last days of freedom just plumbs the depths.
The Irish courts system and its participants, unwilling or otherwise, should be respected, as justice will eventually prevail. Where has the “auld decency” towards our fellow citizens gone to? – Yours, etc,
KEITH NOLAN,
Caldragh,
Carrick-on-Shannon,
Co Leitrim.
Tired ritual of St Patrick’s Day
Madam, – You report “Taoiseach Brian Cowen and Northern Ireland First Minister Peter Robinson and deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness will meet US President Barack Obama at the White House on St Patrick’s Day to discuss progress in the Northern peace process.” (Breaking News, February 6th). Is there any way to stop this?
I, for one, am tired of this annual ritual of Irish politicians coming to the US every St Patrick’s Day. Most of us don’t want them here. We don’t want to see their ugly mugs. It would be much better if they were to stay at home and try to fix their failed economies and their failed states.
Millions of us voted with our feet and left the connivers, the petty, the narrow-minded and the indolent behind. If we want to see them, we may visit. – Yours, etc,
JOHN E O’BEIRNE,
Granite Springs Road,
Yorktown Heights,
New York, US.
Long silence after McCoy report
Madam, – Following my letter (4th January) concerning the care of learning disabled people, I have received a disturbing anonymous letter. I would plead with the writer to make him/herself known to me as a matter of urgency. All correspondence of a “whistle-blowing” nature is treated with utmost care by me. But it is impossible to challenge abusive or unethical practices when the information is given anonymously. I would appeal to the person to take courage and contact me. – Yours, etc,
Dr MARGARET KENNEDY,
Proby Park,
Off Barnhill Road,
Dalkey,
Co Dublin.
Civil partnership ceremonies
Madam, – Breda O’Brien (Opinion, February 6th) is worried about registrars having to conduct a civil partnership ceremony when the civil partnerships are against their religious beliefs.
But registrars are obliged to conduct civil marriages between Catholics even if their religious beliefs tell them that the marriage should be taking place in church. They are obliged to conduct civil marriages between divorced people even if their religious beliefs tell them divorce is wrong. They are obliged to conduct civil marriages between people whose marriages have been annulled by the civil courts for reasons that the Church might not accept.
It is not the job of a registrar to approve a marriage, or a civil partnership, but merely to make certain checks, pronounce certain phrases and make certain records to satisfy requirements laid down by law. – Yours, etc,
JOHN GOODWILLIE,
Old County Road,
Crumlin, Dublin 12.
A chara, – Breda O’Brien writes that “how we handle gay rights versus religious rights will determine whether we become a polarised society that is a cold house for religion, or a genuinely tolerant society”.
Implicit in this comparison is a faulty assumption these rights fall under equivalent categories. Ms O’Brien might plausibly contrast religious views of society against secular views, both being deeply held outlooks.
However, the same cannot be said of gay rights, which are a recognition of an innate characteristic. In classical liberal terms, the rights afforded to religion are derived from freedom of speech and association, and in a pluralist society we should naturally be respectful of differences in such matters, whereas the rights recognised for gay people are a matter of equality before the law, which surely ranks higher in any estimation of rights. – Is mise,
WILLIAM QUILL,
Bray, Co Wicklow.
Madam, Thank you for providing us with a clear elucidation of certain aspects of tolerance in society (Breda O’Brien, Opinion, February 6th). It might be useful if members of the Oireachtas were to read and ponder some of the ideas set out by your columnist before finally signing off on the civil partnerships legislation, lest we, albeit unwittingly, seriously damage the development of the tender plant that is tolerance, diversity and equality in our society. Ms O’Brien instances how this is currently happening to our nearest neighbour.
Who would have believed that, as Archbishop Dr John Sentamu has said, “diversity” could ever come to mean every colour and creed except Christianity, and “equality” come to exclude anyone with a Christian belief in God? There is no need to remind ourselves that “religious freedom” encompasses the freedom to believe and practise one’s belief (as well as the freedom not to believe). This truth will undoubtedly resonate widely among our people, as will the practical suggestion that “a registrar should only be allowed a derogation from a civil partnership registration if a substitute is available”. What is the point in having a partnership registered by an unwilling person in violation of that person’s conscience? Is Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern and our Government listening? In the interest of good legislation, I sincerely hope so. – Yours, etc,
PROINSEIS O’CATHAIL,
Stameen,
Drogheda,
Co Louth.
Something about Harney
Madam, – What a pleasure to read Noel Whelan’s dispassionate assessment of Mary Harney’s accomplishments (Opinion, February 6th). Although my views cluster at the opposite end of the political spectrum, I note that she is often the target of uninformed, superficially ideological and sometimes misogynistic criticism. Here is someone who delivered us a cleaner environment, who fostered and empowered investment in science and who introduced reform to a fossilised and reactionary heath service. How many politicians have been as effective in the history of the State?
Has she evoked outrage, anger and abuse? Of course. One would expect no less. It’s a mark of her accomplishment. Her common depiction is a nice contrast to the oleaginous acquiescence accorded to so many of her political antecedents who were less dedicated to public service than to fostering their personal cause. – Yours, etc,
GARRET A FitzGERALD,
Church Road,
Wayne,
Pennsylvania, US.
Fears over delay in permit renewal
Madam, – Legal Affairs Correspondent Carol Coulter writes about how the recent Supreme Court judgment on asylum judicial review will help ensure “the highest and most transparent standards will be applied in dealing with asylum seekers” (Law Matters, February 1st).
I would like to draw attention to present standards the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform is employing for people who are due to renew their permission in 2010 to remain in the State under the Irish Born Child 2005 Scheme.
Notices were issued by the department in December 2009, that all immigrants who were granted permission to remain in the State under the Irish Born Child 2005 scheme had to renew their permission in 2010, within 14 days of their expiry date.
Immigrants went to the designated offices to renew their papers in January, 2010, as advised. However, they were told that there were no procedures yet in place to process their paperwork. Practically two months into 2010 and there is still no system or procedure in place to carry out what is a relatively straightforward, administrative task. Hundreds of people under the above Irish Born Child Scheme have subsequently become illegal since January 2010.
Many workers have lost their jobs as employers are no longer willing to employ them as they are now deemed to be illegal. Doctors, nurses, domestic workers, IT personnel, engineers will continue to lose their employment over the next few weeks as their paperwork is not being processed. There is the additional risk to some of deportation as the ID that they present if stopped on the street is deemed to be illegal.
Ms Coulter’s suggestion regarding the highest standards that will be applied to asylum-seekers applications in the future is optimistic given that the same department had three years to come up with a system to manage renewal of paperwork arising from a scheme that was put in place in 2005. And as for transparency, the only information available to people is a blank stare from someone behind an official desk or an out-of-date notice from 2009 on a Government website advising people to renew their papers or risk deportation. – Yours, etc,
ISSAH HUSEINI,
National Co-ordinator,
New Communities Partnership,
Cornmarket,
Dublin 8.

Well I must be off

best wishes John

Trip to Dublin

Trip to Dublin 8 February 2010

Well we are off away across the Irish sea to Dublin, cats in the cattery, house all locked up taxi booked all packed and ready to go. It is of course raining and we have to leave at a most unearthly hour, to be at the airport two hours before our 8:30 flight. A few minutes ahead of time our taxi arrives.
It is raining and dark at six am in the morning, and we huddle together in what seem like a mobile prison cell as the taxi bounces from pothole to pothole in the dark and the rain, but finally we arrive the airport it never looked beautiful, but in the dark it looks bleak and forbidding. We trundle through the rain to the entrance, with the new security regulations even taxis have to park a long way from the entrance.
Inside at the incongruous hour of 6:30 are about thirty young women, they are all wearing head bands with springy wires with sparkly shiny shamrocks on top them like the insect antenna. The are clad in black with ‘birthday girl’ picked out in shiny green sequins on their jumpers. It is a hen party, they are off to Dublin to celebrate the birthday of two of their members, who are picked out with white fur headbands.
We wait and wait, they chatter happily to them selves and finally the Ryan air woman appears at her desk and this group of thirty women coalesce and form an orderly queue. I check in my bag and we head for security. At the start of security is a large woman, who barks out orders to the hen party “Take your shoes off, and don”t forget your belts!” We all meekly obey, but I get mixed up with with holding my phone, passport, boarding pass, keys, wallet etc I manage to get through without taking off my shoes.
Behind me is Mary, I pause on the other side of the security arch to wait for her. I had of course forgotten about her artificial knee. It sets the alarm on the arch off ‘Bleep, bleep, bleep’ with a flashing red light. Three female security guards materialize and Mary is shunted against the wall. They surround Mary and look cagily at her as if she was literally about to explode. I am told to move on, but I tell the guard that I am with this lady. I hover at the back of the guards.
They wave a security wand over Mary, it goes ‘Whoop, Whoop, Whoop’ its yellow light flashes angrily like an angry wasp. when they pass it over her knee. The rest of the passengers sidle warily past Mary and her guards. They get another security wand and pass it all over Mary and it too goes ‘Whoop, whoop whoop,and the light if anything flashing more angrily when it is passed over her knee. They then gently but firmly feel all over Mary, and I mean all over, including the soles of her feet. As she does not have any explosives strapped to her, naturally they feel nothing. Finally they let her go. I feel that she came within an inch of being strip searched. I take her off for a restoring coffee and sweet sticky bun.
Despite all this Mary has managed to smuggle in some had cream, not in its security plastic bag. The time flies by, and we board the plane its still pouring with rain, I paid 10 Euros for priority boarding so we are led off and let on first given a seat right at the front. We watch the hen party board raindrops dripping from their antennae, but still happy and cheerful. The flight attendant is a big bluff hearty Irishman who while making the usual announcements mentions the hen party “And we have with us today some lovely young ladies two of whom are celebrating their twenty ninth birthdays, … again!” The hen party, all thirty of them chant “We love the man at the front! We love the man at the front” The big bluff Irishman acquires a slight hint of colour in his cheeks. He says in mock confidential tones “Yous knows I might just be getting lucky tonight” The hen party give him a loud cheer. He pulls himself together and says “And well don’t forget folks, if you can’t be good” there is raucous female laughter from the back “then don’t get caught” They give him a final full throated cheer and then we settle down as the plane takes off.
Ireland is so green, Yorkshire is green, a bright green with vibrant plant life, that put southern England to shame, but Ireland is greener with little patchwork fields, so green and beautiful, the flight is about twenty minutes, and we are down with a bump. We file out watching the hen party their green antennae bobbing away.
We get a taxi and go to our hotel. Its a lovely hotel proud of its history built on reclaimed land from the see. A thousand years ago Viking warriors sailed up the river about thirty feet above our heads. The room is warm with a totally idiosyncratic heater all enclosed in a metal cage which either blazed out too much warmth or smoulders to itself. Most of our fellow guest are Italian over for a rugby game with Ireland. The Italians carry on conversation at twice the volume of the British, a young boy is greeted at breakfast with loud cries and pats on the back, how unEnglish.
We spend the next two days visiting the Irish National Art Gallery, which is about a twenty minute walk from the hotel.
Next morning, as I post my postcards at the front desk the man before me has a complaint, the party in the next room were making a noise and banging doors all night. He is grim and determined. He wants another room preferably on another floor. My ears prick up the offending party are in room 436, our room is 439, we did not hear a thing in the night. Just the sound of the trains. Which I found quite comforting. I have a hopeless romantic idea of train travel to far distant and exotic places. We decide to keep an eye on room 436. The man red eyed with lack of sleep, glares at me, he has not met the offending party in room 436, he thinks it might be us!
Though the economic bloom has gone off Ireland there is still an appreciation for the arts the gallery is large and with a fierce independence shows off the works of the Irish masters. With quite a good contribution from Irish womanhood as well. There is also a lot of international works from the Great, Titian, El Greco, etc etc. We look at paintings and spot lovingly painted dogs and the occasional cat amongst the saints and sinners, the peasant, the poor, the soldiers and the now forgotten great people of the time. I bought a lot of postcards and I’ll put them on Flickr over the next few days. Its milder than Leeds, and while not actually rain free, then it does not actually rain very much. We quietly spend out time at the gallery, the food is fairly cheap and delicious.
Next morning as we go down to breakfast we note a empty bottle of wine and three empty bottles of beer outside the offending room 436. Just as we check out we pass them by a big burly man and small thin elf like woman, we nod in recognition.
All too soon the time has flown its time to go home, we unwisely go to Waterstones bookshop, Mary gets Irish poetry and I history. The all spent out, we get the taxi to the airport. Sadly no hen party on the way back and I remember to tell security about Mary’s knee before she goes through the arch, security men don’t like surprises! The guard a big, shaven headed tattooed, brute of a man, though just slightly on the plump side, I wonder how he copes with the more athletic smugglers? Mary literally bounces off him and into the arms of a single female security guard, with a single wave of her wand, the by now almost traditional ‘Whoop, Whoop, Whoop’,as she passes it over Mary’s knee she smiles and waves her through. None of this taking off your shoe business thank goodness. The flight home is uneventful and we are fifteen minutes early and we collect our bag and get a taxi and at last we are gratefully back home.

Obituary: Ian Carmichael: actor

Ian Carmichael’s amiable idiocy on stage and screen was supreme but his talent went deeper than that. In there somewhere was also a gentle but well defined sexual charm that women adored; at his peak in films such as Private’s Progress, I’m All Right Jack, Brothers-in-Law and Lucky Jim they were writing him up to 600 fan letters a week.
Slightly built with nervous blue eyes, he hardly measured up to the accepted screen hero on any Hollywood scale. Yet at the height of his 15-year run as a guaranteed box-office draw at the cinema, he became the best known British comedy actor abroad after Alec Guinness. He once beat the pelvic Elvis Presley in an international popularity poll.
The film-making twins Roy and John Boulting, who established Carmichael’s film career in the 1950s with six successive hits when Britain still possessed a film industry, were forced to introduce a stronger love interest for the characters he played. They cast him because they wanted a non- heroic leading man who was instinctively and humorously inept at whatever he tackled; but they hadn’t bargained for the added bonus of the actor’s erotic appeal to women.
This same dithering sexual attraction was carried over into his repeated successes on stage. He achieved long West End runs in romantic comedies such as The Gazebo, Tunnel of Love, Simon and Laura and the celebrated Lyric Review, later the Globe Review of 1951-52, which first made him a star.
His popularity was sustained because, although women yearned to mother this helpless charmer, men liked him too. They readily sympathised with his blundering reactions to life’s difficulties and did not see him as a threat to their wives and girlfriends.
As with other stage and film actors in the postwar years, Carmichael was initially wary of television, then still finding its way. However, he was to change his mind as the content and production techniques improved and film offers became less frequent. In fact, television was to give his career a fresh and timely impetus with two memorable roles tailor-made for his gossamer style of comic acting. One was P. G. Wodehouse’s monocled man-about-town Bertie Wooster; the other Dorothy L. Sayers’s urbane amateur sleuth, Lord Peter Wimsey.
For an entertainer, especially for such a successful one, Carmichael was remarkably self-effacing. He often expressed, in press interviews, candid astonishment at his continued run at the top of an insecure profession. A lover of the country, he preferred serene pursuits like reading, wandering about his garden and his beloved cricket — he played for the Lord’s Taverners. He loathed the West End. He hated New York even more.
When his first Broadway venture in the mid-1960s, starring in the comedy Boeing Boeing, survived only three weeks after a critical savaging, he was blandly philosophical, calling it a “nice little flop”. He remarked that he hadn’t relished living in Manhattan for a year anyway; and it was not a case of sour grapes, the homesick actor meant it.
Even Paris failed to appeal, particularly after an experience that could have come from one of his films.
On a rare visit for the premiere of Private’s Progress, he drank too many unaccustomed dry Martinis and ended up at the top of the Eiffel Tower demanding to know why no one had introduced him to the then celebrated Lady Docker. “Made a bit of an ass of myself, old chap,” he later confided in an interview. Another episode, a more serious one, yet it bore the unmistakable comic familarity of his Boulting scripts, happened during the Second World War when he was serving in the Royal Armoured Corps as a tank officer. In clambering from the turret of a Valentine tank he inadvertently slammed the lid down on his left hand leaving him minus the top joint of the longest finger. “Dashed unfortunate” was his summing up of that incident.
Ian Carmichael was the only son of Arthur Carmichael, a prosperous Hull jeweller and silversmith. Carmichael Sr had expected that his son would take over the running of the business. Instead, after attending prep school in Scarborough and going on to Bromsgrove in Worcestershire, the young Carmichael made it plain that his ambition was to enter show business — either acting or in music.
He ran his own band during school holidays, playing the alto saxophone and the drums at local dances. However, acting was to be his eventual preference when he won a place at RADA. In his second term he made his first professional stage appearance, playing a robot in a play called RUR (Rossum’s Universal Robots) at the People’s Palace in the Mile End Road, Stepney, East London.

His first wage-earning tour after graduation was 10 weeks with the Herbert Farjeon Revue in which his emerging comedy talents were given their first real polish. In September 1940 his call-up papers arrived and he enlisted with the RAC and was eventually commissioned at Sandhurst.
Early in the war, while stationed at Whitby, he met his wife-to-be, Yorkshire girl Pym Mclean, at a dance. He wrote later in his autobiography Will the Real Ian Carmichael… that he knew she was the one for him because “she never once yawned during my incessant chatter about the theatre and its personalities”.
They were married in 1943 and were to have two daughters. His war service included landing with his regiment, the 22nd Dragoons, on the Normandy beaches on D-Day Plus Three and campaigning through France and into Germany. No longer a regimental officer after the amputation mishap, he proved to be a brilliant administrator in a staff capacity. In the last year of the war he was seconded to troop entertainment and with Major Richard Stone, who was subsequently to become his agent, produced 20 shows; he was demobilised in 1947 with the rank of major.
He resumed his stage career with a nine-month West End run in the play She Wanted a Cream Front Door. There followed roles in some of London’s fringe theatres and his first stab at television in early musical and comedy shows at the BBC’s Alexandra Palace. He appeared alongside Desmond Walter-Ellis, Lois Green, Diana Decker, Charles Hawtrey and Edward Rigby in programmes with titles such as Give My Regards to Leicester Square and Tell Her the Truth. The BBC, aware of his wartime experience in producing shows for the troops, persuaded a nervous Carmichael to become a freelance director of some of its revue programmes.
His growing comedy prowess received an added boost from a master when he toured with the Whitehall farce veteran Leo Franklyn in The Lilac Domino. He toured for the impresario Prince Littler in a revival of the prewar musical Wild Violets in spite of reservations because of “an insipid script”. He was won round by Littler increasing his salary a fiver at a time until finally he could no longer afford to refuse. He was saddened, though, to realise that he was living proof that “everyone has his price”.
Stardom came with the Lyric and Globe Reviews but he was to make his real mark in 1954 with the new Alan Melville runaway hit Simon and Laura produced by Hugh “Binkie” Beaumont, and which was later filmed with Carmichael the only member of the stage cast to be signed. In Simon and Laura he played a wildly enthusiastic television producer trying to grapple with a daily soap opera about an ideal marriage involving the fiery and constantly rowing couple Simon (Roland Culver) and Laura (Coral Browne). In the film they were played by Peter Finch and Kay Kendall.
Carmichael’s film career took off over the next decade with the long run of Boulting Brothers comedies, although he was also seen in serious roles, including playing a guards officer in The Colditz Story and Tom Willoughby in Storm over the Nile, a remake of the A. E. W. Mason novel The Four Feathers. As the film industry foundered and the roles began to dry up, he moved smoothly back to television and won large audiences with his Bertie Wooster and Lord Peter Wimsey series before semi-retiring to the North Yorkshire moors. He returned to television as recently as 1992 when, at 71, he played a Scottish laird in the BBC series Strathblair. In 1999 he played Lord Cumnor in the BBC adaptation of Mrs Gaskell’s Wives and Daughters. He was working up until last year, with a part in ITV’s long-running medical drama The Royal.
He had, possibly, one professional regret. He once remarked: “My ambition is to become a romantic leading man (his role model was Rex Harrison) but it is hard to achieve when the public wants you to be funny all the time.”
He was appointed OBE in 2003. His wife Pym died of cancer after 40 years of marriage. He is survived by his second wife, the novelist Kate Fenton, whom he married in 1992, and by his two daughters.
Ian Carmichael, OBE, actor, was born on June 18, 1920. He died on February 5, 2010, aged 89

Letters:

Guardian:

Without seeking to adjudicate on the merits of any MP’s case (MPs charged over expenses could face seven years in jail, 6 February), the governing principle is clear: criminal acts by elected representatives must never be beyond the reach of the law. This principle has historically been formulated in various ways: “No man is above the law” (Dicey); “Be you never so high, the law is above you” (Thomas Fuller); “No man is altogether above the restraints of the law; and no man altogether below its protection” (Macaulay). But perhaps the most pertinent expression of the idea comes from the US, when judge Damon Keith stated: “Democracies die behind closed doors.” Notwithstanding parliamentary privilege, the doors of our elected chamber must remain open.
Dexter Dias QC
Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London
• Well, at least we didn’t get again the “simple sword of truth” unsheathed to fight “the cancer of bent and twisted journalism”.
Andrew McCulloch
Newcastle upon Tyne
•  The courts have no authority to judge when an MP is protected by parliamentary privilege under the bill of rights. In 1939, when Duncan Sandys broke the Official Secrets Act in a written question, the question of ­prosecution was held in abeyance until the ­committee of privileges had given a ruling.
In that very different case the committee resolved that no prosecution could be brought. In the current case the committee may take a different view and the house should urgently instruct them to meet and give a ruling. The magistrate must adjourn ­proceedings until the committee has ruled.
Derek Cole
St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex
•  Regrettable that these MPs can put their names jointly to a statement that they refute the charges. If the peer was not one of these, we are left with three MPs who have no familiarity with your style guide. Not sure which is the greater offence.
Bill Edmead
London
•  Does anyone remember the bad old days of the Labour party when they could accommodate MPs such as Dave Nellist, who took only the wage of a skilled factory worker? At least New Labour put an end to that sort of nonsense.
Richard Clifton

Article history
Jon Snow is absolutely right when he says that Ofcom’s complaints function must not be used by governments “to curb … investigative reporting [to] hide from public scrutiny” (A watchdog exploited, 5 February). But, contrary to the suggestion contained in your ­headline, Ofcom did not allow the Sri Lankan government to exploit our procedures, when it complained about Channel 4 News broadcasting footage of the apparent atrocities committed against the Tamils.
Ofcom has an excellent track record in defending freedom of speech for legitimate investigative journalism (for example, our decision in Channel 4’s Undercover Mosque).
In this Sri Lankan case, Ofcom did not take forward the Sri Lankan ­government’s fairness complaint and rejected its impartiality and accuracy complaint.
Ofcom has a statutory duty to ensure that broadcasters comply with the broadcasting code, irrespective of the identity of any complainant. As the Channel 4 News presenter points out – only parliament can change that.
Chris Banatvala

Your editorial on climate change (6 February) reveals a naivety about the nature of scientific truth. History shows from the trial of Galileo on, also illustrated in Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People, that in a scientific debate which has political implications truth rarely wins out. The winners are not necessarily those who “speak the truth” but those with the biggest guns. Total scientific transparency, while laudable, often means handing your guns to your political opponents. Whatever you say or reveal will be distorted intentionally and turned against you. In today’s society where people are tried and executed by unmoderated blogs, climate scientists are in a no-win situation. Any discrepancy in information they reveal, however innocuous, will be blown out of proportion and used as evidence against them. The University of East Anglia correctly discerned the situation and the embarrassing emails show the extent of their concerns.
I am deeply dismayed that the Guardian, which promoted the 10:10 campaign and wrote such insightful articles on climate change, appears to be blowing with the prevailing political wind, also justifying unverified contrarian views about temperature data or curves. These complicated issues must be resolved by the scientific process, in a lab, not by newspaper editorial or blog. The public deserves to understand the context of the hacked emails and the harassment that climate scientists are subjected to on a daily basis, something lacking in your articles and editorials.
Paul Kieniewicz
Glass, Aberdeenshire
• Congratulations to Fred Pearce for his balanced and thoughtful articles on the climate email affair (5 February), and commiserations to Simon Jenkins (4 February) and Simon Hoggart (6 February) for having lost the plot so completely. Those who refuse to accept something despite a mass of evidence for it go far beyond genuine and constructive scepticism. And those who believe in something without a shred of evidence for it can only be called credulous. Scientists, who spend decades making observations and using evidence to test their theories, try hard not to fall into either of these categories. If our cars or our bodies need to be fixed, we seek out and only trust those who are trained and qualified to do the job. Why should we not do the same when it is the future of the world that is at stake?
Professor John Shepherd
Fordingbridge, Hampshire
• With reference to your article (Detectives question climate scientist over leaked emails, 5 February), I wish to make three points. First, we are in the middle of a police investigation. Detectives have taken formal statements from many of us in the school and university, including me. To my knowledge, Dr Dennis has not been singled out for attention, and he has publicly denied leaking any files, data, emails or other material. Second, the Climatic Research Unit is part of the School of Environmental Sciences, which has over 170 academic staff and researchers, working in many areas of science related to the environment.
We are not “beleaguered”, as your journalists claim. As one of the world-leading departments in interdisciplinary research, we have always adhered to the highest standards in the production of academic knowledge. This includes promoting continuous, open debate among scientists from a wide range of academic disciplines in the natural and social sciences.
My colleagues were not gagged, as implied in your report. At a meeting on 18 November, they were asked to refrain from commenting to the media only until the university had established the immediate facts about the hack. Several colleagues were responding to press and broadcast media by 20 November, and have continued to do so.
Professor Jacquie Burgess
Head of the School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia
•  The freedom of information requests to UEA’s Climatic Research Unit about contentious climate change data should never have been blocked. John Beddington, the government’s chief scientist, rightly called on scientists today to share data freely (Chief scientist: climate researchers must be more open, 4 February) “so that people can do the challenging in an unhindered way”. But he should apply his strictures to the government’s own use of data about GM crops and food (which he supports), where the GM companies only publish data favourable to their cause and prevent researchers getting access to any data that undermines their commercial interests.
Indeed where scientific claims are being made, FoI transparency should be made as applicable in the private sector as in the public, especially in the field of pharmaceuticals. Recent cases about the use of injunctions to prevent disclosure, and moreover super-injunctions as in the Trafigura case, also reveal the need for strengthening the law to open up access where there is a clear public interest to do so.
But equally the opposite case – the unlawful interception of messages where no genuine public or scientific interest in disclosure exists – should be treated as a very serious offence. Most notably the apparent involvement of News of the World journalists in ­extensive phone hacking (Report, 2 February), plus allegedly unlawful requests by them and other news­papers for intimate details on an endemic scale (Report, 31 August 2009), is a serious invasion of privacy that should be stamped out by deterrent penalties.
Michael Meacher MP
Lab, Oldham West and Royton
• The climate change emails furore demonstrates that: scientists are as prone to skulduggery and infighting as any other group of professionals; people who feel their expansive lifestyles threatened will clutch at any straw, however feeble. Neither should cause us much surprise. Calm down, everybody!
Professor Alan Wenban-Smith
Birmingham

I’m pleased to be able to inform Lesley Beames (Letters, 6 February) that archaeology has proved Laurence Olivier’s rabbit-eating King Lear at least a partial possibility. Since Granada’s 1980s broadcast of the play, evidence has been found of Roman rabbits, in Norfolk (the rabbit had been butchered) and East Sussex. In both cases the animal was a southern Mediterranean type, but imports from the Roman world are known from before the invasion, and it’s not impossible to imagine a tribal chief serving rabbit stew along with his Spanish wine. The search for Lear continues.
Mike Pitts
Editor, British Archaeology
• Jon Canter is spot-on in his piece on the vacuous pretentiousness of current artspeak, but ’twas ever thus (Artspeak? It’s complicated, 6 February). Peter Sellers got there first in 1959 in his sketch The Critics on his comedy album Songs for Swinging Sellers (partly written by Frank Muir and Denis Norden). As the fictitious Faith Bradshaw (played by Irene Handl), film critic of the Sunday Sun, put it, when describing a new exhibition at the Royal Tate, “Bonstadt habitually used angular fragmentation of pigment to consummate his all-­pervading theme of hermetic anarchy – it’s as simple as that!”
Jeff Wells
Layham, Suffolk
•  I find implausible English Heritage’s suggestion that two circular hedges surrounding Stonehenge might have been there to keep ceremonies secret from onlookers (Survey unlocks evidence of Stonehenge hedges, 5 February). A more likely explanation is that the builders didn’t have planning permission (An Englishman’s silo is his castle, 6 February).
Nicholas Carter
Wells, Somerset
• Supporters of Grimsby Town (aka the Mariners) always refer to their custodian of the net as the Ancient Mariner, because he stoppeth one in three ­(Letters, 6 February).
Rick Hall
Nottingham
• I find it reassuring that your many and diverse correspondents on the subject of cliches (Letters, 6 February) at least appear to be on the same page.
Joe Walinets

Don’t blame us baby-boomers, Andrew Hankinson (“How graduates are picking up the tab for their parents’ lives”, Observer Magazine), for the tough circumstances you and many young people are now experiencing. We grew up in the postwar years; food was rationed, there was little to buy in the shops and nothing was open on Sundays; houses were freezing in winter; toys, outings and treats were few and far between.
University education was free, but not accessible to most young people, and there was no easy credit to supplement the grant. We worked in vacations and never even considered such luxuries as gap years.
We learnt to live within our means and not to spend what we did not have. Houses were not cheap relative to incomes and mortgages were impossible to come by unless you had savings with the building society.
We had to save for what we wanted and this discipline enabled us to build up nest eggs for the future. And what has happened to these savings? They have been devalued by the current crisis, just at a time when we need them to support our retirement. Our savings and investments have been the victims of greedy bankers .
John Pawsey and Janet Galley
Milton Keynes
■ Tell Andrew Hankinson to start counting his blessings. He has an inspirational father, a loving girlfriend, a good education, his youth and his health. Take a year out from job search and volunteer his services to a working party in Haiti and help to build a home for a devastated family. He may find life afterwards truly rewarding.
Pat Lambert (Mrs)
Kenilworth, Warks
■ An excellent article. The politicians have devastated an entire generation. It was obvious that policies that favoured the financial industry and diminished all else would bring us crashing down – and they did. Get the heck out of England, kids. The wealthy have won; you have been pushed out of your own country.
Name and address witheld
■ Andrew Hankinson should see another lost and angry generation. These are people in their 50s and 60s, whose dreams of retirement have vanished through redundancy, illness or pension fund evaporation. But unlike him, they have no time left to catch up. He should know that the period between the devaluation of sterling in 1967 and the intervention of the International Monetary Fund a decade later was also no bed of roses for new graduates. I started in tedious non-graduate jobs and took my opportunities as they came along. I did have the common sense to switch industries a couple of times, though.
Mervyn Leah
Rugby, Warwickshire
■ Inflated house prices have occurred not because of an intention by baby boomers to neglect or rob the next generation but because of a massive undersupply of new houses – for which governments of both parties should feel deep shame – and an irresponsible and extended lending spree by financial institutions.
Richard Harris
Watlington, Oxon
■ As a current university student, I find Andrew Hankinson’s attitudes towards graduate employment unjustifiable and totally misguided. Anyone who expects to walk into a job upon leaving university with any degree is deluded. His disdain of perfectly acceptable employment is unpalatable particularly from someone of his age.
His total fascination with such a narrow career path is obviously his downfall. I am sure that any employer would much prefer someone who has shown hard graft in any job to someone who merely sits at home awaiting his perfect vocation.
Edmund Cassidy
University of Oxford

Independent:

Apparently, scientists are supposed to be infallible paragons, whose pronouncements are never less than utterly certain. Following the shocking discovery that climate scientists are human beings, we keep hearing variants of that cliché-cry of know-nothing bafflement: “How can I possibly believe anything that scientists say?” The answer is simple: you can use your brain and do some critical thinking.
First, you’ll need to get a decent layperson’s grasp of the issues at stake. The idea that non-scientists are incapable of understanding the evidence and arguments is nonsense; there are dozens of well-written, lucid, non-technical books on climate science, each of which anybody can read in a day or two.
Second, in the light of this new-found knowledge, you can consider the recent “scandals”, and ask yourself three simple questions. Is the erroneously estimated date when Himalayan glaciers are likely to disappear an indispensable pillar of the scientific case for man-made climate change? Is it the only finding cited in the IPCC’s report which suggests that the near-future impact of climate change could be very serious, or just one of many hundreds of separate observations supporting this view? Finally, do a few scraps of evidence, trawled from thousands of emails archived at the University of East Anglia during past 15 years, merely tell us that a few individual scientists may have occasionally behaved somewhat less than impeccably? Or do they, as some would have it, provide proof of a vast international conspiracy of deliberate deception, placing the entire body of published findings in this field under serious doubt?
Then you can turn your critical attention to the climate “dissidents” and check out the links between some prominent controversialists and a variety of vested interest groups, such as right-wing think-tanks and their remarkably generous fossil-fuel donors. Once again, the relevant evidence is easily available, to those who care to look for it.
Andrew Clifton
Edgware, Middlesex
Unfortunately the “errors” of the East Anglian climatologists are far worse than mere “bad behaviour by a few academics” or “slightly woolly” science (letters, 4 February). They were an attempted fraud and cover-up by a state-funded authority on a par with the spin pioneered by the Government over the past decade. The loss of honesty at the heart of this culture is near-terminal.
I should add that the evidence from the migrations and extinctions of lepidoptera in the recent period entirely backs up theories of human-induced climate and environmental destruction.
Dr David Spooner
Founder, Butterfly Conservation East Scotland, Dunfermline, Fife
The ’sincere’ Blair could still have lied
Howard Jacobson, in quoting Dr Samuel Johnson, shows his knowledge of English literature (Opinion, 6 february); but a grasp of Machiavelli would serve him better in understanding Tony Blair’s conduct over Iraq.
That “a man can be disastrously wrong in his judgment and not be a liar” is true; but the fact that, with the invasion, “Blair honestly considered, and considers, it the right thing to have done”, does not mean that he did not lie to further his agenda. Machiavellian statecraft would require that he deceive, if necessary, to further his noble aims. On this point at least, Blair seems to have been a good student of the Florentine.
Blair lied to the House of Commons when he stated that Saddam could stay in power, as far as he was concerned, if the dictator gave up his WMDs. We now know from Chilcot, and Blair’s television interview, that he was as intent on removing Saddam as Bush, even if it meant providing a different pretext. We know that Colin Powell had to argue with Rumsfeld and Cheney to delay an invasion of Iraq until after Afghanistan in 2001. The US administration was always going for regime change, and Blair can have been in no doubt after the 2002 ranch powwow.
This is prima-facie evidence of deception of Parliament in the interest of starting a war. Whether Blair sincerely believed in his cause is neither here nor there.
Duncan McKeown
Norwich
Howard Jacobson cannot understand the depth of anger which so many of us still feel towards Tony Blair, and accuses us of having “orgied on sanctimony”. In his eloquent attempt to exonerate Blair from lying, he overlooks the obvious.
He ignores the ways in which Blair, in writing and in speeches, manipulated and changed the intelligence information in the build-up to war. Information which undermined the case for war was left out, caveats were ignored, and the doubts became certainties. “No solid evidence” was changed to “established beyond doubt”.
For Tony Blair to mislead Parliament and the country in this way, in order to take us to war, was unforgivable.
David Simmonds
Epping, Essex
Cameron’s record on gay equality
Johann Hari’s interview with David Cameron (4 February) exposed the Tory leader’s hypocrisy. His evasion of Hari’s questions does far more than “sow doubt” in my mind about his commitment to equality.
His party has tirelessly tried to prevent Labour from bringing positive non-discrimination measures on to the statute book. At a European level he has rejected partnerships with mainstream parties, instead jumping into bed with politicians who think that gay people are “abnormal, asocial and abject”, while his own MEPs have failed to vote for any equality legislation.
David Cameron and his party do not deserve the trust of any minority community.
Michael Cashman MEP
(Labour, West Midlands)
Brussels
David Cameron states that he met openly gay people for the first time in the Conservative Research Department which he joined in 1988. I have heard him say he was the only heterosexual in the place.
That is rather unkind to the half-dozen or so of my colleagues at that time who shared his proclivities. The scarcity of open gays at Eton and Oxford in the 1980s comes as a great surprise. Can the Brideshead tradition really have been so severely curtailed?
Alistair Cooke
London SW1 (The writer was deputy Director, Conservative Research Department, 1985-97)
Brown’s feeble voting reform
Andreas Whittam Smith’s excellent article “Change the voting system and we’ll change our world” (5 February) neatly explains the link between ministers introducing new policies and attempting to look good in the eyes of the electorate, but he misses the opportunity to complete the circle with his comment over the proposed voting system changes.
The final paragraph states that experts think that the alternative vote system would not make a decisive difference, but it would be a start. Isn’t this the whole point of the system being proposed by Gordon Brown? It will look as though something is being done, will not in fact make any difference to the parliamentary make up, and would take decades to be superseded by further changes – no wonder it has the support of the incumbents.
Fraser Yates
Ipswich
Andreas Whittam Smith is right that a change to our voting system would mean a change to the way our politics is conducted. He is wrong, however, in believing that a move to the alternative vote would address the problem of large majorities for the winning party. Most experts believe AV tends to magnify the landslide effect and increase rather than mitigate large majorities.
The solution to voting reform is the single transferable vote; it is more proportional, it retains a constituency link and it allows voters to determine between candidates from the same party. Which is exactly why Gordon Brown and David Cameron fear it so much.
Steve Travis
Nottingham
How refugees lose faith in Britain
I read your article about Prince Bakare (“I’d rather be sent back to my torturers than stay in a detention centre”, 4 February) having just visited my friend in Brook House immigration removal centre. Failing any last-minute reprieve he will be in a van as you read this, on his way to Heathrow to be deported to face the torturers in Africa from whom he fled.
You quote from the head of immigration: “We consider every individual case with enormous care and where someone needs our protection, we will grant it and do so .” That statement rings hollow for many I have met. Our legal system seems set up to prevent them having their stories heard. Their lawyers, when they can find one, are overworked and often apparently uninterested.
If they come into contact with the courts for having the wrong papers (whoever was able to get the right papers from a government while fleeing for their lives?) they may receive a “criminal” record and lose even the limited protection against deportation that we may offer.
I have met a few people in similar circumstances. I listen to their stories of their country (where they would love to be if they could be safe) and how they came here. They believe that when they get here Britain will be fair and just and will listen to their case. To see their hopes dashed after they have clung to them despite the mounting evidence that few people care and those that do cannot change the system makes me feel sick to the core.
Dr Gemma Stockford
Burgess Hill, West Sussex
The proposed “voluntary repatriation” of Burmese refugees in Thailand poses a serious risk to their lives and rights (report, 5 February). During a visit to refugee camps on the Thai-Burma border late last year I heard first-hand accounts of widespread human rights violations from refugees who had fled to Thailand from eastern Burma. In the absence of a significant improvement in Burma these repatriations must be stopped.
The international community’s political and practical support for the refugees, some of whom have been in the camps for more than 25 years, also needs to be assured; and finally the regime must be forced to work with the United Nations to restore democracy to Burma, and to release Aung San Suu Kyi and all prisoners of conscience.
When this has been achieved, Burma’s refugees will be only too happy to return to their homeland.
Lesley Ward
President, Association of Teachers and Lecturers London WC2
Tory worries
I have received correspondence from my MP, Robert Goodwill, shadow transport minister, which includes a questionnaire. The six questions are, in this order, relating to: fox hunting, the local health service, speed cameras, reduction in speed limits, who would be the best Prime Minister and lastly “Have you any worries?” Nice to know what the priorities are.
Brian Crinion
Whitby, North Yorkshire
Decent MPs
So three MPs may have a case to answer. Which means that well over 600 do not. Yet these undervalued and hard-worked individuals, smeared and jeered by the media, and as a result by the public too, represent centuries of struggle and suffering by women and men fighting to obtain democracy. Parliament is not “them” as against “us”. Parliament should and can be “us”, the mirror of the nation. So I say to those who moan “They’re all the same”, do something: stand for office yourself.
Ian Flintoff
Oxford
Pylon power
Terence Blacker (“A land despoiled by pylons”, 5 February) should be careful not to confuse visual impact and environment damage. One affects humans, the other all species. Friends of the Earth Scotland concluded that pylons on the Beauly-Denny line through the Stirling area are less environmentally damaging than burial. It’s certainly not just a question of cost, as he correctly recognises, but responding to our energy challenges will not be answered by over-simplistic solutions.
Professor Patrick Corbett
Energy Academy, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh
Holy innocence
Cherie Booth’s disgraceful judgement sets a worrying precedent (“Judge Cherie spares man jail because of his religion”, 5 February). Its implication is that to look contrite and parrot off the right sanctimonious keywords will absolve anyone of crime. How many lawyers will now advise their clients, hot off a football terrace on a Saturday afternoon or any high street on a Friday night, to claim belief in a higher power? Welcome to the new dark age of dogma; it’s as if the Enlightenment never happened.
Richard Butterworth
London N13
Diggers remembered
You report on the influx of highly paid footballers into Cobham in Surrey (6 February). Cobham is also where Gerrard Winstanley and the Diggers set up, in 1649, one of the first communist experiments on George Hill, now a private golf course.
Chris Lilly
London E14

Times:

Sir, Politicians will not regain the trust of the public if those MPs and peers who have been or may be charged with false accounting over their expenses claims are able to invoke parliamentary privilege (report, Feb 6).
There is a simple remedy. Parliament should enact a one-clause Bill declaring that matters relating to expenses claims are not “proceedings in Parliament” and that the ordinary criminal courts are to have exclusive jurisdiction to try any criminal charges arising out of such claims.
If MPs and peers are really determined to restore the reputation of Parliament, they will ensure that such a Bill is passed into law within days.
David Lamming
Groton, Suffolk
Sir, It seems the parliamentarians are intent on claiming immunity in law and at taxpayers’ expense. Similar “peculiar rights” provisions apply to diplomats: the Libyan Embassy shooting of a police officer readily comes to mind. Since those days the rules governing diplomatic behaviour have been tightened up. It is past a question of an archaic 1689 “law” but rather it is one of personal integrity and the continuing debasement of Parliament. Our elected public officials have still not got it and are acting on the basis that they have little else to lose by such a challenge while they cloak themselves in dubious privilege. Vernon Scarborough
Copthorne, W Sussex
Sir, The MPs charged with theft over fraudulent expense claims are not “above the law,” nor are they making any such claim. In this country no one, save the Sovereign, is above the law. What the three MPs are claiming is parliamentary privilege, which is enshrined in law and which means, in this case, that they should be tried by the House of Commons. The fact that the powers to fine and imprison have not been used for some considerable time does not mean that they should not or could not be used on this occasion.
Geoffrey Alderman
Michael Gross Professor of Politics & Contemporary History, University of Buckingham
Sir, The need to protect parliamentary privilege is as valid today as it was in 1689. What is often overlooked in debate is that Parliament itself is a court: See Book of Common Prayer, Prayers and Thanksgivings, A Prayer for the High Court of Parliament. It has its judicial proceedings, these days usually only the work of the Committee on Privileges, but in principle including impeachment and attainder. If Members of Parliament are outside the jurisdiction of the normal courts in respect of proceedings in Parliament, for very good reason, they should be subject to more vigorous “policing” by Parliament’s own judicial proceedings, and not just the occasional slap on the wrist.
Frank Mattison
Hessle, E Yorks

Redmond McDonagh wrote:
Any chance of the details of the last time an MP was fined or imprisoned by the House of Commons?

I can well imagine that to-day there would be a vote on party lines to exonerate government members. Member of the opposition would, naturally, lose their pensions, and be stripped of all assets under the Proceeds of Crime Act, and imprisoned for life.

Sir, However desirable it may be to introduce the teaching of Mandarin into the curriculum, whether for political, economic, or even general educational and cultural reasons, Martin Stephen (Thunderer, Feb 3) and your correspondents Chris McGovern (letter, Feb 4) and Peregrine Rowse (letter, Feb 5) do not sufficiently address the problem of an adequate supply of suitably qualified teachers. There is nationally an increasing dearth of modern languages teachers, even of European languages, and a regrettable and noticeable decrease in the numbers of pupils wishing to study them at GCSE and A level. The pattern of Russian teaching some years ago, for reasons not entirely dissimilar to the current fashionable promotion of Chinese, was such that the numbers of graduates wishing to come back into schools to teach the language was insufficient to match the need for a steady supply of them. At primary school level, if there is already difficulty in recruiting well-qualified teachers of European languages to promote recent government initiatives, what hope is there for the teaching of Mandarin? Under pilot schemes in the Seventies to introduce French into primary schools, teachers were often those who had “done a bit of French at school”: the results were disastrous, in that on entry to secondary school it was necessary to do remedial teaching before pupils could progress further. Bringing Chinese nationals into the schools without adequate training, even if there were enough of them — which is, arguably, unlikely — would not be a satisfactory solution to the problems of supply and demand.
Ron Naylor
Retired modern languages teacher
Lytham St Annes, Lancs

Redmond McDonagh wrote:
A teacher of any language should have at least near-native ability in English and the other language.

If I had such skill in speaking, reading and writing Chinese, I would certainly not waste my talents in a British school, where I would get neither respect nor monetary reward.
February 8, 2010 3:31 AM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Gary C wrote:
Languages taught in school are often compulsory in the lower grades and become an option in the latter years. Students who learn the fundamental’s all too often make the mistake of hating it and not carrying on in the subject.
TESOL may not bring the highest trained teachers to the classroom, however, it does bring passionate teachers in touch with serious pupils.
Apart from programs like this, immersion is the school of the desperate and dedicated.
February 7, 2010 10:55 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Peter Cressall wrote:
Obviously one cannot click one’s fingers to supply adequate numbers of Mandarin teachers. It will take time, and a start must be made. First, the salary paid must be sufficient to make the career attractive. To expect them to do it for love is to expect too much.

Sir, The appointment process adopted for the selection of our next Supreme Court justice, it appears from the account given by Frances Gibb (“Supreme ambition, jealousy and outrage”, Law, Feb 4), may be unlawful for reasons in addition to those suggested.
The practice of closed consultations among the senior judiciary, or “secret soundings”, is one that has long since been recognised as disadvantaging women and other minorities, in particular where those consulted, as in the instant example, are likely to be predominantly men (and, for that matter, from a particular class, social and ethnic background).
Such practices may result — even unintentionally — in the commission of an unlawful act because of their impact on women and others.
But what is also evident is that if we are to address the scandalous domination of men (or the scandalous under-representation of women, depending on how you view it) in the senior ranks of the judiciary, we need some mature reflection on the appointments process.
This should involve a review of the criteria for, as well as the method of, selection. No doubt “a brain the size of a planet” is very helpful in a senior judge, but it is surely not the only thing we would want in our Supreme Court.
The senior judiciary collectively, and what it brings to complex, nuanced socially sensitive decision-making, is as important as the size of its constituent brains.
Karon Monaghan, QC
Matrix Chambers
London WC1

Sir, So measures are to be taken by the Cabinet Office to save £500 million a year by the merging or abolition of 123 bodies (“Spending on quangos rises by £10bn despite Brown’s pledge”, Feb 5). Why did it need a recession and a massive budget deficit for this to take place?
Government spending is clearly allowed to get so out of control that savings of this magnitude can seemingly be found very easily, without the Government needing to warn people of the consequences of these “cuts”. The Audit Commission seems to achieve very little except to tell us what we knew in the first place, of incidences where the Government is wasting money. By which time, of course, it is too late to do anything about it.
We need a stronger body that stops the Government wasting the money in the first place. That body should be Parliament. It clearly is not.
Christopher Riordan
Bristol
Sir, It’s OK to waste an extra £10 billion on quangos, but we cannot afford £700,000 for cutting-edge research in astronomy (report and letter, Feb 5). Could this have anything to do with Parliament being overloaded with lawyers and members with qualifications in politics? Do any of them understand the timescale of a scientific research project?
Margaret Wheatley
Market Rasen, Lincs

Thomas Hope wrote:
6-figure salaries and accountability little beyond producing reports of indeterminate value and schedule seem typical of quangos borne out of excuses by Government for their incompetence.
Easy of course for the next regime to scrap before starting out on the next set. At the very least a Quango must have a strict budget and limit on its lifetime, (a bit pie in the sky however).
February 7, 2010 10:55 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Peter Cressall wrote:
To expect Parliament to limit government spending is like putting prisoners in charge of a gaol, Christopher Riordan.

Sir, Had Hugo Rifkind paid more attention after the first week of his philosophy degree, the remaining years might have brought him to recognise that we invented the idea of gods as metaphors to help us to deal with the discomforting realisation that “there’s no such thing as abstract morality” (“Atheists are more annoying than believers”, Notebook, Feb 5). And a fine invention they are.
In the absence of “ultimate answers” these metaphors are useful as poetic constructs to aid our thinking. The problem is that most of the world’s religions have forgotten that we invented their gods. When we are exhausted by the troublesome work of sifting through the miasma of human interaction in our efforts to find a viable moral system that might apply to all, our anxieties often make it seem too difficult to continue.
Thus the word “god”, which started as a handy metaphorical tool, becomes confused with reality in order to provide us with the comforting but mistaken thought that there is an “ultimate answer”. There isn’t.
Mr Rifkind asks: “If God isn’t the ultimate answer, what is?” Well, the answer is: “We are.” And that’s why decent people must pay more attention in whatever classes they attend in order to develop the tools and the kindness with which to face the problem of having to construct a moral system. It is a dilemma that forces us to forgo the appeal of comforting but misleading alternatives and engage it with courage and invention.
Noel S. Wilson
Rustington, W Sussex

Sir, In contrast to my 170-year-old front door lock, which has functioned without fault all that time, a four-year-old lock failed when a coil spring broke. A raid on my Meccano and I found what I required, and the lock is working again.
Yet whatever happened to the hardware store, where a man in a brown dustcoat could understand the problem and find a replacement spring, at a cost of just a few pennies? Sadly, no more.
However, perhaps there is a lesson here for Toyota (reports, Feb 4 and 5) in that they could learn from the simple, robust and proven mechanisms of the past rather than relying on too complex a unit for such a simple operation as operating the carburettor.
Charles Beamish
Tavistock, Devon

Tim Locke wrote:
I doubt that a car could be produced today that would meet emissions regulations and get acceptable economy using “simple robust and proven mechanisms”. Especially not if using a carburettor.
February 8, 2010 2:01 AM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Thomas Hope wrote:
Absolutely right Peter, remembering the cars in the sixties with which we would expect to have teething troubles in the first year and the onset of corrosion immediately following that.
The Japanese pioneered quality improvements and the Koreans are now offering 7 year waranties.
In the years that Japanese cars became popular, they would not export cars until they had been thoroughly proven in Japan.
It might be that this quality control is being diluted by subcontracting on a world-wide basis, including component design.
It will rightly be a hard lesson which they will of course take very seriously.
After decades of a top reputation for reliability, they have been slow to recognise their serious imperfections.
February 7, 2010 10:43 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Peter Cressall wrote:
If modern cars were made with the “simple, robust and proven mechanisms of the past” they would be too expensive to buy and as unreliable as old cars were (what poor memories we have!)
February 7, 2010 8:55 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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stanley cohen wrote:
“The more flesh the more worms.”
Ethics of the Fathers
Babylonian Talmud
Completed 420 C.E.

Sir, There is a fundamental flaw in Bristol University’s research data (“Degree of satisfaction for proud cat owners,” report, Feb 6): cats do not have “owners”. In return for food, cats lease their services to gullible people. That these “owners” may have higher qualifications than dog owners is merely further evidence, if more were needed, that academics tend to lack common sense.
Peter Sergeant
Loughborough, Leicestershire
Sir, As I clear up the second hairball of the day on what was once an attractive oriental carpet, I am sure I am not more intelligent than dog owners, but I do know for certain that I am regarded as staff by the small furry family members.
June Keeble
Storrington, W Sussex

Tim Locke wrote:
“In order to keep a true perspective of one’s importance, everyone should
have a dog that will worship him and a cat that will ignore him.” –
Unknown
February 8, 2010 2:14 AM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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George Purnell wrote:
Any farmer could tell you:
Dogs look up to you.
Cats look down on you.
Pigs is equal.
February 8, 2010 12:47 AM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Peter Cressall wrote:
Cats are faithless operators with their eyes always on the main chance. They are also excellent psychologists, who have managed to delude their owners that they are not.

YOUR report “Ugly low-pay truth of high street fashion” attacks the very brands that are making the best job of tackling what is clearly one of the biggest dilemmas facing responsible business (World News, last week). We must monitor what is a living wage for each region. We are not prepared to pay a living wage for the clothes we buy and it is a tough job to make business alone arbitrators of that.
Only those paid a living wage can consume. China is learning this as it moves from an export-led growth strategy and investment-led recovery to consumer-led growth. It recently granted urban rights to some of its 230m migrant workers. We must start rating companies more highly that place ethics at the heart of how they do business.
Professor Alyson Warhurst
CEO Maplecroft
Honorary Professor, Warwick Business School

In need of investment
The main problem is not low pay, as nearly 40% of Sri Lankans live on less than $2 a day, but that nearly all garment manufacturers are based in the expensive western province around the capital Colombo. After the tsunami I worked for the United Nations and we were inundated with applications (in the predominantly Tamil north and east) for low-paid volunteers.
The high-street stores and garment manufacturers could, with government help, open factories in the wartorn northern and eastern areas where such levels of pay would be a godsend.
The government promised (after defeating the Tigers) it would invest heavily in these areas. Perhaps the Chinese could also consider developing the harbour in Trincomalee in the east as they are doing in (the mainly Sinhalese) district of Hambantota (the president’s constituency) in the southeast.
John Mahoney
Sutton Coldfield
Acting against poverty
The £14.8m pay package for Marc Bolland, M&S new chief executive, compounds the stark contrast between the workers’ poverty and the remuneration for the retailers’ directors, as well as the firms’ huge profits. The admission by the Ethical Trading Initiative that “the efforts of the most responsible retailers are not yet good enough” highlights the need for British government action.
Simon McRae
War on Want, London EC2

Tim Hammond wrote:
Mr Armitage is spouting nonsense, mixing up any number of different issues and problems. Claiming that the increased differential between rich and poor is bad because it is the rich that have done well is plain silly – to demonstrate, how would it be better if the rich hadn’t got richer but the poor had stayed where they are? In other words, he seems to think that it would be better if we were in aggregate poorer. It is only bad that the rich have got richer (economically speaking)if they have done so at the expense of the poor, and there is no evidence for that whatsoever. After all, outsourcing and other mechanisms that Mr Armitage mentions help the poor in otehr countries do better – is that somehow bad as well? I would rather give people in poor countries work than aid. The other mechanisms he mentions are all part of increasing productivity – and in the end productivity is the only way that the World can get richer. As for the notion that if you tax anybody less they will spend more…how can that be wrong? Either we spend it, or the government taxes us and spends it. The only difference is that the government tends to spend in ways that are much less productive and much less effecient. In any event, he is aware of the evidence that disproves his point: the gap between richer has poorer has grown in the UK over the last 15 years despite signficant wealth redistribution and higher taxes for the rich.

The problem in the West is that a section of the population has been unable to particpate properly in the growth of the economy because of a lack of education, a lack of motivation, a lack of training, a lack of ability or a combination of these factors. That is the space where government should be active, and where governments in every Western country have failed miserably. It is not capitalism or markets that have failed, it is governments and government policies. If you want to look at failure, look at dogma-ridden state-funded schools in the US and UK
February 7, 2010 9:57 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Alyson Warhurst wrote:
My letter was cut short by the editor, due to space, but I wanted to say that we need to look across the entire value chain of business and how business interacts with society including markets and governments. First, we need to look at the country context of poverty and low incomes. One company alone cannot solve that, governments have an important role to play. Second, we need to look at how we value companies – which currently is more on short term results rather than the extent to which they contribute to long term growth environments beneficial to their own competitiveness and that of their consumers. My point in my letter above being that the markets do not reward companies via enhanced shareholder value for contributing to their long term growth environment. Thirdly, unless we employ people and then pay those we employ a living wage – enough to pay for their daily needs and discretionary income – people are not able to participate in the economy fruitfully nor will the economy grow healthily. And, unless business is sucessful, it won’t be able to employ people either in their own operations or indirectly through supply chains. Therefore, it is in the interest of everyone that business contributes to its long term growth environment and both the company and its senior managers are rewarded long term, not short term, for doing so. We currently have a situation that if a company puts its prices up relative to others on the high street it risks going out of business because neither investors nor consumers value a socially responsible business and business alone cannot fix this inherent market flaw.
February 7, 2010 11:57 AM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Kenneth ARMITAGE wrote:
For the last 25 years businessmen and senior politicians have supported the monetarist view of Milton Friedman that the only responsibility business has is to shareholders and to make as much money as possible without breaking laws. Friedman stated, “Few trends could so thoroughly undermine the very foundations of our free society as the acceptance by corporate officials of social responsibility other than to make as much money for their shareholders as possible”, and, “There is one and only one social responsibility of business – to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud.”

In the last few decades the gap between rich and poor has widened as those at the higher levels in business found ways of awarding themselves pay rises, bonuses and share options in a headlong rush into the trough and demanding greater efficiency and productivity from employees to maximize profits whilst employing the management fads of downsizing, delayering, business re-engineering and outsourcing jobs abroad, rapidly increasing unemployment in some western nations.

This monetarist merry-go-round was driven by ‘trickle-down economics’ based on the notion that if you tax the rich even less they will spend more and, eventually, it will trickle-down to the lower levels in society and improve their standard of living. The US economist John Kenneth Galbraith referred to this ploy as the “horse and oats sparrow theory”, where he suggested if you feed a horse enough oats some will eventually pass through for the sparrows.

Capitalism is not dead, but the model is tired and jaded and needs an injection of integrity because we simply cannot continue in the same vein in future with an economic model that provides a decade of supposed boom followed by 2 or 3 years of bust during which presumption is replaced by despair.

Telegraph:

SIR – Gordon Brown’s denial that the Armed Forces were underfunded in the years before the Iraq war must rank as his most cynical yet (report, February 4). Since 1997, while health, education and other “social” budgets tripled, the defence budget has limped by with a two to three per cent increase in most years, not enough to keep pace with inflation – much less the rising cost of equipment.
As a result, numerous projects were cut back or cancelled, and the forces available for deployment were heavily reduced.
 
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Let us not forget the cancellation of upgrades to the fuel tanks on our C-130s, which resulted in loss of a life when one was hit by Taliban ground fire.
Let us not forget lives lost for lack of fire support from heavy machine-guns when they malfunctioned due to cheaper, eastern European ammunition.
Let us not forget the Royal Military Policemen who died in al-Amarah for want of working radios, or the six members of 3 Para who died or lost limbs in 2006 for want of winch-equipped helicopters.
For those who did make it home alive but injured, let us not forget the absence of military hospitals that resulted in the miseries of either Selly Oak or of just being dumped in the local A & E.
Richard Hughes
Loughton, Buckinghamshire
SIR – General Sir Mike Jackson and Nick Chaffey (Letters, February 5) are, of course, right to emphasise the key role in the overdue reform of defence acquisition of “a new, and this time fully funded, defence industrial strategy”.
However, this must include the funding of the engineering function in key defence companies on a continuously rolling basis, as opposed to the stop/go practices that have all too often been the norm. Engineering resources cannot be just switched on and off like a light. In particular, advanced engineering, which facilitates the timely, cost-effective development of future projects, must be firmly established as an integral part of the indigenous defence capability.
While, historically, there has been much hostility to accommodating such work in the MoD’s costings, where this has been accomplished it has been commended by the National Audit Office as an important cost-saving measure.
M. C. Neale
Former Director-General Engines (PE), Ministry of Defence
Sherborne, Dorset
SIR – Sir Mike and Mr Chaffey are right that affordability is matter of political choice.
In the absence of a strategic defence review, in the wider context of a comprehensive spending review, why is there already an assumption that the current MoD programme of commitments is not affordable?
Air Vice-Marshal M R Jackson
Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
Selecting our next MPs
SIR – Now that this “rotten Parliament” (report, February 5) is coming to an end can we expect the next government to be any better? Will the new intake make any difference to the manner in which Parliament operates?
Certainly, they won’t be open to the temptations offered under the discredited expenses scheme, but, judging by the candidates being selected to replace retiring members, little else is likely to change. From what we can tell so far, the new members will mostly be clones of their predecessors and are unlikely to be any better or worse.
David Cameron seems to believe that cutting the number of MPs would be of some benefit, although how reducing representation would raise the quality of government and democracy is hard to see.
What we do need is a change in the method of selection of candidates for all parties, which will provide opportunities for people with greater affinity with ordinary working folk than the professional politicians, academics, lawyers, businessmen and the like who predominate now.
Bill Banning
Birmingham
SIR – What about the scandal of public money being wasted on quangos and their non-jobs?
You report (February 5) that quango costs have increased by £10 billion since Labour came to power. MPs’ expenses are a drop in the ocean in comparison.
P. J. Chippindale
Liss, Hampshire
SIR – The three Labour MPs charged with false accounting are trying to claim parliamentary privilege to avoid being prosecuted in court.
Proof, if proof were needed, that there really is one law for us and an entirely different law for them.
Andy Bebbington
Stone, Staffordshire
SIR – Please could you publish a list of all those MPs who are not standing at the next general election, and list their publicly funded pensions.
Ann Staveley
Thornham, Norfolk
Learn to type
SIR – In the sixth form in the 1960s, we had to choose one of several subjects in general studies; I chose typing (Letters, February 6).
The wise old teacher told us: “Some of you boys will be laughed at for choosing typing, but you will gain a skill that will be invaluable in your working life.”
David Newbery
Twickenham, Middlesex
Non-animal lover
SIR – Cat owners may be more intelligent than dog owners (report, February 6), but surely the most intelligent are those who do not have either.
J. A. Smart
Waterlooville, Hampshire
Impossible to mend
SIR – My steam iron has broken, but I cannot undo it to repair it as it has a new screw head that my screwdriver does not fit. The fault could be just a loose wire. I have found a replacement iron for £3.84. If I collect it, I will pay £2.40 on the bus, or it can be delivered for £5.95. It was made in China, with a 1-metre cable and a plug.
Robert Smith
Brentford, Middlesex
Out-of-hours service
SIR – The debate on out-of-hours care is in danger of ignoring the root cause of the problem (Comment, February 2). The reason that most GPs voted to give up the responsibility was because the out-of-hours workload had become untenable, due to the volume of calls and the increasingly litigious nature of the work. Most doctors saw out-of-hours as an accident waiting to happen. Clearly, it is time for a rethink.
First, examine the effect that free health care has on demand, and if necessary, consider introducing a charge for out-of-hours consultations.
Secondly, mount an aggressive campaign to explain what the out-of-hours is there for, and what it is not for, namely second opinions, trivial illness, and convenience medicine.
Thirdly, use the monitoring services of the primary care trusts to identify chronic abusers of the system, and introduce some form of penalty.
Fourth, “name and shame” those people who think that they can threaten NHS staff with impunity.
If these measures were put in place, then out-of-hours may become an attractive place to work again.
Dr Chris Nancollas
Yorkley, Gloucestershire
Football and a long life
SIR – Prof Peter Krustrup’s study shows that playing football could be the key to longer life (report, February 5).
I played professional football for Glasgow’s Third Lanark football club for three years, and last month I celebrated my 106th birthday. I am the oldest man in Scotland. Back in 1929, Third Lanark was one of Scotland’s major clubs, and I was paid £6 and ten shillings a week.
After hanging up my boots, I still enjoyed a kick around in the park. My hobby has been the key to me continuing to enjoy a long, happy life.
Sam Latter
Edinburgh
Young handshake
SIR – I recently attended a coffee morning at a local primary school. On leaving, I shook hands with several of the teachers and parents to whom I had been chatting (Letters, February 6).
A young gentleman, aged three, offered his hand to me to shake. That simple gesture kept a smile on my face all day.
Rev David Gray
Swindon, Wiltshire
History of Lib Dems and proportional representation
SIR – As you point out, Gordon Brown’s belated interest in electoral reform is a crude attempt “to ingratiate Labour with the Liberal Democrats in the event of a hung parliament” (leading article, February 4). Like everything else that this Prime Minister tries, it will fail.
The only reform that the Labour Party might be prepared to accept is the alternative vote system. The Liberal Democrats will insist on proportional representation. The historical precedents are absolutely clear.
In 1930, Ramsay MacDonald, growing ever more desperate as prime minister in a hung parliament, introduced an electoral reform Bill to bring in the alternative vote. The Liberals rejected the bribe. MacDonald recorded in his diary on May 19, 1930 that Lloyd George “told me [he] could not get his party to accept [the] alternative vote: [it] would only have proportional representation”.
Ted Heath did only slightly better when he tried to do a deal with the Liberals in order to cling on to power in the hung parliament created by the February 1974 election. Recently released documents show that Jeremy Thorpe, the leader of the Liberal Party, told Heath “the main problem would be electoral reform. There could be no deal without that – PR for boroughs and large towns, an alternative vote elsewhere”. Heath told him he could not “undertake to deliver anything like this”, and the talks collapsed.
History will repeat itself if Mr Brown persists with his cynical ploy.
Alistair Cooke
London SW1

Irish Times:

Protecting the disabled from abuse
Madam, – Carl O’Brien’s excellent reporting (Invisible Lives, Features, February 2nd 3rd) has opened the situation of many people with developmental disabilities to public discussion. But it is only a beginning.
The implementation of standards and inspection will bring some transparency to residential conditions, but the real question is how a genuinely better quality of life can be achieved for each individual.
This rests on the complex issues of social inclusion: the willingness of the public to create relationships, take responsibility, welcome engagement, and of the society/Government to invest in inclusive arrangements.
To understand and promote constructive change will be a much broader task than a two-day exposé and will need a discourse among many different voices. Will The Irish Times continue its initiative and provide a forum for a wide and continuing discussion? – Yours, etc,
PATRICK LYDON,
Mill Lane,
Callan,
Co Kilkenny.
Rowing in behind the Government
Madam, – I believe our Government has its act together and has a determination and leadership, not seen previously, to pull this country out of recession. A very large number of us, the citizens of Ireland, are experiencing great difficulties, loss of jobs, loss of homes, loss of income and loss of pension income.
I therefore find it nauseating and totally selfish that particular groups who are in secure State employment are determined to destroy our recovery while causing great inconvenience and hardship to the people of Ireland through work-to-rule, strikes and non co-operation with work practice changes which are intended to improve services to the public.
Everybody is feeling the pain; there is no ideal remedy that everyone will consider totally fair. I am retired from private business and my pension that I spent a lifetime paying into has been decimated. If I had been a public servant this would not be so.
The most recent outrage by the highly paid air traffic controllers is typical of the selfish attitude of a group who showed total disregard for the many thousands of travellers and businesses that were denied access to flights. The chaotic disruption to so many by so few in pursuit of their own agenda displayed an arrogance and contempt for the public that beggars belief. The fact that their irresponsible action has also caused damage to our national image seems to count for little with these people.
Things will get better quicker if we all row in behind the Government and give it a fair chance to do what it has to do. Unions should give the national interest their first consideration and stop pandering to selfish aspirations and demands of those members who already enjoy the security of State jobs and generous benefits. – Yours, etc,
J KENNETH GRACE,
The Park,
Cabinteely,
Dublin 18.
Key role of rural transport
Madam, – A new report by the Citizens Information Board, Getting There: Transport and Access to Social Services, highlights some of the difficulties people, particularly those living in rural areas, have in accessing public transport.
While people who are registered as blind are entitled to a free travel pass, this is of no benefit in an area where there is no public transport, forcing people to either pay for expensive taxi journeys or to rely on friends and family for every journey they take.
With rural transport schemes under threat from budget cuts, people who are blind or vision-impaired living in rural areas are finding it increasingly difficult to access GPs, chiropody services, banking, shopping, day-care services and essential ophthalmic services.
The Health Service Executive provides transport for an older person from their home to a hospital, but in many areas ophthalmic services are not located within a hospital setting and the transport service therefore does not extend to eye care. Last year in Donegal, one NCBI service user spent €150 on a taxi from his home to his community ophthalmologist, but received only a rebate of €25 from the HSE.
The number of blind people in the Republic aged 55 years and over is likely to increase by 170 per cent between 2006 and 2031. The increase in the number of people who are vision-impaired for the same period is estimated at 180 per cent.
Accessible public transport is of vital importance to older people with low vision, enabling them to remain independent. If we do not plan now for the future transport needs of our ageing population, fewer and fewer people will be “getting there”. – Yours, etc,
DESMOND KENNY,
Chief Executive,
National Council for the Blind of Ireland (NCBI),
Whitworth Road,
Drumcondra,
Dublin 9.
Church’s role in primary education
Madam, – As an organisation that has had to forge an alternative model of education in the face of a powerful and sometimes hostile establishment, Educate Together’s policy positions have never been founded on presumption.
We do, however, presume parents have an inalienable right to educate their children in a manner compatible to their conscience. We presume this right is expressed as a legal entitlement in Ireland both in our Constitution and laws. We presume the more actively and creatively a parent is involved in their child’s education, the better the outcomes are for the child and for society.
As a result, we also presume that our Government today has an obligation to vindicate these rights by providing for the preference of an increasing number of parents who wish to send their children to Educate Together schools.
What is staggering in the current situation is that the Government has halted the established process whereby change can take place in school supply.
New schools can no longer be proposed by patrons representing local community interest and afforded State support. Our society is increasingly demanding change, but the Government is ignoring calls for even an open forum on models of patronage. It is tinkering with a new model of State primary school that is certainly more expensive and probably unworkable. In all of this, the views and wishes of parents are being disregarded.
Educate Together has proposed a simple mechanism to address the urgent need for change.
First, that local authorities are empowered to provide administrative, legal, HR and facilities support services for all types of recognised schools on an equal basis. Second, that parents of all children are provided with a form in which they can express their first three preferences on school type or “ethos” and the local authority is then legally bound to allocate buildings, resources and places according to these preferences. Enabling legislation and negotiations over ownership of school buildings will be required.
To do this, we require vision, courage and action from our Government. – Yours, etc,
PAUL ROWE,
Chief Executive,
Educate Together,
Oak Drive,
Dublin 12.
Madam, – Tom Sheppard (January 30th) asks, “If we are to run our schools according to authentic Catholic doctrine, rather than the principles of the State, are we to teach our children that divorce is wrong and that homosexuality is a sin, despite the legality of both?”
Is the law of the State superior to the divine law?
I would recommend a reading of Edmund Burke’s work on the impeachment of Warren Hastings. Burke wrote: “There is but one law for all, the law that governs all law – the law of the Creator; the law of humanity, justice and equity; the law of nature and the law of nations”.
We have Burke’s statue outside the entrance to Trinity College. We still respect and honour him because of what he stood for. Do we want Richard Dawkins and his followers in Burke’s place?
In order for the human race to reach truth and freedom (not licence), I would opt in every way for Mr Burke’s philosophy rather than that of Mr Dawkins – and I have the freedom to do so. – Yours, etc,
Sr MB CLANCY,
Sue Ryder Foundation,
Dalkey,
Co Dublin.
What if the UK used the euro?
Madam, – “Full” membership of the EU should require a mandatory commitment to joining the euro currency. The UK enjoys an unfair advantage in this regard, especially over Ireland.
Could one of our prolific economists do something useful for once and calculate what our current economic situation might be if the UK were in the euro? And then send the report to the Commission for comment. – Yours, etc,
JOSEPH FAGAN,
The Pines,
Castleknock,
Dublin 15.
Elevating the Ha’penny Bridge
Madam, – John Stafford’s suggestion of an elevated Ha’penny Bridge has much to commend it (February 5th). Wouldn’t it be the case, however, that pedestrians on an elevated bridge would run the risk of being decapitated when the long-awaited Liffey cable car is up and running? It would be a shame also if the East meets West project were to be thwarted by a scheme to facilitate Northsiders finding their way home safely from Temple Bar. – Yours, etc,
RONNIE NEVILLE,
Prospect Heath,
Rathfarnham,
Dublin 16.
The stories parents tell
Madam, – As a professional storyteller and writer who visits schools all over this island almost every day, I wish I could be happy with the results of the survey (Home News, February 2nd). The report stated 71 per cent of mothers read a bedtime story to their children nearly every night.
This certainly runs counter to what I am hearing from children! Over the past 20 years I have seen a steady decline in young people’s talking, listening and concentration skills and so I make a point of asking every group how many of them have televisions in their bedrooms. The results show about 80 per cent, even in the under-five age group.
I meet a lot of children who have no knowledge of nursery rhymes but who can chant the songs from cartoons, who speak with American accents due to the time spent viewing, and whose lack of imagination and speech certainly does not indicate any experience with face-to-face storytelling. I discuss this with teachers and speech therapists on a regular basis.
I know almost every parent realises they should tell stories to their children and, if asked, I reckon most would definitely say they do. In talks to parents I always make a plea for them to use public libraries and bookshops and of course to talk to their children rather than plonking them in front of a screen either in their own rooms or even in the back of their cars, a more recent phenomenon. Storytelling should be a vital part of family life for all children.
It is ironic that on the same page of your paper there was a piece about library storytelling being suspended due to a work-to-rule. For some children, that would be their only access to hearing a story told from a real person as opposed to a box! – Yours, etc,
LIZ WEIR,
Barn,
Cushendall,
Co Antrim.
Targeting fat-cats in go-slow action
A chara, – In solidarity with the public sector “go-slow” action, I have decided to join them by not answering phone calls or any other correspondence from any public service body, the Revenue Commissioners included.
This action is designed not to affect the ordinary working man in the public service, but to target the “fat-cats” at the top. However there may be collateral damage when the State runs out of money and can’t pay the wages.
This is not my intention, but such is the nature of strike action. – Is mise,
SEÁN DOWLING,
Timoleague,
Co Cork.
ECT without consent
Madam, – The recent debate about electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) (Healthplus, February 2nd) is long overdue. ECT is a highly controversial treatment. It has been the subject of debate and review in other countries in recent years, which has led to it being effectively abolished in Italy, and to it being available only in specialist centres in Belgium and Germany.
However, it remains, in certain quarters in Ireland, a commonly used tool in the psychiatrist’s kit, and many psychiatrists are very defensive about retaining it as a valuable alternative to other treatments. Many recent studies and reviews of literature (particularly user-led ones) have served to re-emphasise the controversial nature of the treatment, pointing to the undeniably common side effect of permanent memory loss, the dubious nature of the “science” behind ECT and the lack of solid and convincing evidence as to its longer-term efficacy.
However, the current focus on the merits or otherwise of ECT is muddying the waters of the issue that is at the centre of the proposed amendment to Section 59 (b) of the current Mental Health Act.
This issue is to do with the rights of a person detained under the Mental Health Act, to have proper representation when a decision is being made to perform ECT on that person.
Under the present regime, ECT can be given to a non-consenting patient solely on the signature of two consultant psychiatrists. In any other branch of medicine it would be outrageous to consider that a next-of-kin need not be consulted.
Any such decision should be a multidisciplinary one, taking into account the opinions of other professionals involved in the patient’s care, as well as the next-of-kin and any signed advance directive that the patient may have made.
The current Mental Health Act is out of line with the progressive national mental health policy, A Vision for Change. The proposed amendment should be whole-heartedly supported. – Yours, etc,
Dr JOAN GILLER,
Coolnagarrane,
Skibbereen,
Co Cork.

Well I must be off

best wishes John

Snow

Snow 3 February 2010

After a comparatively mild day it back to the cold, but I manage to get around the park. Fluff appearing from out the bushes to see me off her anxious face watching me until I turn the corner. They are no joggers, no early morning dog walkers no early morning commuters on their way to work, just cars passing by, lights blazing all in a hurry to get through another dull day.
I screw up my courage and grid my loins and square my shoulders, for I am to face the Ryanair website. I have to for I have to print out our boarding cards. I get the required page, and put in the details the code the email address and click on the button, nothing, I click again. Still nothing. If I don’t print out these wretched boarding cards they will charge me €40 each both ways!
I try again and again and finally it works! But what is this the have put Mary down as male. Mr Mary Blakey, I must change that! The only way to do it is to ring the helpline. The helpline is €1.50 per minute! So I ring them, the phone rings and rings, not even that ever so condescending irritating voice that tells you that your call is important and is in a queue. I try again and the BT woman’s voice comes on ‘There is a fault on the line, please try again later’. A fault on the line, to a major European air company?
I decide to print out my boarding pass anyway, though I have no intention of abandoning Mary if they let me through and not her. But there is no honorific on the boarding pass, perhaps it might be all right if I print Mary’s lets hope so.
Snow has been forecast, so what ever the weather will be it won’t snow, but just in case of a freak weather incident accidentally coinciding with forecast I go and fill up the bird feeder, squirrel feeder more like. A layer of seeds and a layer of peanuts the seeds are rather small and fall out of the mesh of the feeder, but I thoughtfully put some newspaper down on the table, and scoop them all up again though one peanut falls on to the floor and bounces under the table vanishing immediately.
I hang but the feeder that should do them until we get back on Monday. Its so cold, perhaps there will be snow after all despite it being forecast.
The cats think so and huddle up for warmth against the warm air ventilation. And yes here it comes, first one flake, falling carelessly to the ground, and bedecking the drive in startling white before vanishing away. Then another and another. If it keeps up like this they will close the airport on Friday!
Sausage, bacon, leeks, carrot and parsnip all in the slow cooker, for ages, I should have put some olive oil in as well as by tea time it has almost dried itself out, but its quite quite delicious. Last of the Joyce Grenfell, a little repetitive she did most of these turns eight years ago and did them better then as well, still thats the last of it. A hard fought game of Scrabble, though we seem to keep blocking on another, but Mary beats me soundly in the end.

Postcards

Postcrossing card from Ukraine: Boxer dog

Doggy disaster

Postcrossing card from Finland Potato and Strawberry dogs

Three lovely cats

Postcrossing card from Zurich

Obituary: Sir Laurence Pumphrey: Ambassador to Pakistan

Sir Laurence Pumphrey was a former prisoner at Colditz who went on to become Ambassador to Pakistan from 1971 to 1976 during Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s turbulent leadership first as President, then as Prime Minister.
John Laurence Pumphrey, known as Laurie, was born in 1916, the fourth son and fifth child of Ernest Pumphrey and his wife, Iris. His mother’s personality, sharp wit and reputation as a hostess in Northumberland influenced all her children, but, on Laurie, his father’s Quaker background and quiet, strong character had a greater effect.
His family background set the pattern of his life. His heart was always in Northumberland; the Puritan in him responded to the austere beauty and loneliness of its moors and hills. A strong and clever boy, he did well at Winchester, went up to New College, Oxford, with a scholarship, and emerged with a first in Mods and Greats and a half-blue for crosscountry running. Academic life did not attract him, however.Coming down from Oxford he read for the Bar, but was interrupted by the Second World War. He went with the Northumberland Hussars to the Middle East, only to be captured in Crete and spend the next four years in prison camps — the last two in Colditz. He learnt Russian, and on his release in 1945 returned to marry Jean Buchanan-Riddell, a Northumbrian neighbour whom he had courted for seven years. Nearly 30 and married, making a living at the Bar seemed remote and he entered the Foreign Office through the postwar reconstruction examination.
His start there was auspicious and successive postings as Assistant Private Secretary to the Permanent Under-Secretary, Sir Orme Sargent, and then at 10 Downing Street to Clement Attlee, the Prime Minister, carried the hallmark of future success.
By 1955 he had been promoted to Counsellor as head of Establishment and Organisation. But in 1956-1957 an event was to change the course of his career. Soon after the Suez crisis, he met, on a train, a young cousin, then a secretary in Conservative Central Office, who told him that the latest change in Bank rate had been widely known in her office before it was announced. Pumphrey concluded that this was proof of government malpractice. But, aware that those who had questioned Suez’s legitimacy through the proper channels had achieved nothing, he reported the matter not to his superiors but to the Labour Opposition and the matter was duly raised in Parliament. A tribunal set up to investigate concluded that the allegation was unfounded.
It was a very public humiliation. But there were no recriminations and Pumphrey went quietly on in his department. Thereafter, the appointments of someone publicly branded as irresponsible were bound to be under scrutiny and his chances of an early independent command greatly reduced. However, in 1960 he went as Counsellor to the CommissionerGeneral’s Office in Singapore; in 1963 he was appointed CMG and moved to Belgrade at No 2; and in 1965 he was appointed Deputy High Commissioner to Kenya.
In 1967 he was promoted as High Commissioner in Zambia and in 1971 he was again promoted, this time to be Ambassador to Pakistan. The opportunities for travel, often arduous, suited his tastes and temperament; he was stimulated in his contact with President Bhutto; regretted his fall; and was shocked and saddened, but not surprised, by his eventual execution.
He was appointed KCMG in 1973 and retired in 1976.
Pumphrey was always honest and direct with little taste for “flannel”. Intellectual speculation was never much to his taste.
But his judgment and control over strong emotions and a sensitive nature were, with one disastrous exception, firm and balanced. He was a hard worker who sought to master his job and its problems, a pragmatist and a sceptical realist.
He is survived by his wife Jean and by four sons and a daughter.
Sir Laurence Pumphrey, KCMG, diplomat, was born on July 22, 1916. He died on December 23, 2009, aged 93

Letters:

Guardian:

Simon Jenkins (I’m with Pope Benedict on this one, 3 February) is wrong to suggest that the equality bill is a threat to liberal values or intolerant of religious belief. Our legislation goes a long way to accommodate religious organisations. Churches will not be forced to appoint gay priests or vicars. But, where a job is not closely tied to the religious purposes of the organisation – for example, cleaners or cooks – most people would agree that a “no gays” policy is pretty difficult to justify. At stake here are crucial boundaries between church and state, the private and the public. For Catholic adoption agencies the prohibition relates to local authorities providing public money to organisations that discriminate against lesbians and gays. Public bodies have a duty not to discriminate on the grounds of sexual orientation, just as they should not discriminate against people on the grounds of their faith or race.
Liberal values provide choices and freedoms for individuals and society, but they are never absolute. The real issue here is the extent to which religious organisations, where they elect to operate within the public domain, may demand a privileged position in legislation which is intended to promote values of fairness and tolerance for ­everyone in society.
Angela Mason
Commissioner, Equality and Human Rights Commission
• I appreciate it’s open season on Catholics – plus ca change – but necrophilia? The entire Catholic church? 1.1 billion people around the world, all sexual deviants? Simon Jenkins thinks he’s being satirical, but even then he’s farcically wide of the mark. Catholicism is a celebration of life in all its forms, not an obsession with death; we worship the risen Christ, not the dead one. I’m a practising Catholic with lesbian and gay friends (shock), who feels great shame at the sex abuse scandals within the church, who is baffled by its misguided obsession with sexuality, and is increasingly annoyed that all the fantastic work Catholics do around the world – fighting for social justice, helping the poor, the sick, the disenfranchised, the lonely, the dying – is constantly overlooked because of this issue. It’s time the silent majority of liberal-minded Catholics spoke up.
Matthew Wall
London
• The pope’s wake-up call mirrors a growing sense of disquiet within the Jewish community that the push towards equality does indeed risk the imposition of unjust limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs. Nowhere has this tendency been felt more than in education, where the leaders of the excellent Jewish faith schools have had to contend with a recent ruling by the supreme court that takes away their right to determine admission by Jewish status.
Rabbi Jonathan Guttentag
Convenor, National Association of Orthodox Jewish Schools

It appears that the latest trick of the Tories is to confuse long-term borrowing rates and the bond market by using the term “interest rates” indiscriminately, as per your report (Tories accused of muddled thinking over spending cuts, 1 February). David Cameron seems content to mislead the general public by suggesting that the low interest rates they are currently paying could well go the way of Greece and head through the roof. Of course, Greece’s interest rates are set by the European Central Bank as it is part of the eurozone; and Mr Cameron is (presumably) referring not to that comparator, but to the interest the Greeks are paying on their enormous budget deficit, which dwarfs our own.
Scaremongering about the amount of money people are going to have to part with every month is low politics – and is indicative of the Tories’ astonishingly loose thinking on just about every aspect of their economic plan, as shown by their series of reversals over the last month.
David Blunkett MP
Lab, Sheffield Brightside
• Jackie Ashley’s assertion that “the [Iraq] war destroyed progressive politics in Britain for a generation” (Comment, 1 February) doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. In 2005, two years after the war began, a big majority of the electorate voted for broadly progressive parties. Since then, although its detractors may find it hard to acknowledge, Labour has, within the many constraints of our complex world, continued to purse a progressive agenda. Even the Tories have been forced to disguise themselves as progressives.
Brian Hughes
Cheltenham, Gloucestershire
• At the same time as Gordon Brown is promoting raised aspirations and the need for greater social mobility and credentialism, an article appears (A failure to do the maths?, Education, 2 February) arguing that, rather than the government prediction of 600,000 unskilled and manual jobs by 2020, realistic expectations put the figure at 7.4m. Now it’s clear that we cannot all be middle-class, it’s time for both parties to rethink political rhetoric and policies and start to consider the ways in which the social value of the working classes can be fully recognised. For too many years the dogma has been that they need to reinvent themselves as middle-class. Such sentiments have always been insulting, but now they no longer appear to have any economic justification either.
Professor Diane Reay
Faculty of education, University of Cambridge
• When I heard lots of bankers were flying to Switzerland, I thought they might be plotting a mass suicide at Dignitas. Apparently, they went to Davos (Economics, 1 February) to plot against being properly taxed and regulated. Hey ho!
Frank Dobson MP
Lab, Holborn and St Pancras

Jonathan Freedland is right that the electorate is being let down by the media (Comment, 3 February). If Tony Blair, as opposition leader, had indulged in misleading PR stunts, had been as evasive over his background and status of party donors, had been so inconsistent and light on policy, and had embarked on a presidential-style, egocentric election campaign, the media would have destroyed him – and rightly so.
Norman Evans
East Horsley, Surrey
• Oh good. I am so relieved to hear a future Tory government will give us all faster broadband (Report, 1 February). That will really help close the poverty gap and reduce the increase in child poverty brought about by governments slavishly adhering to neo-liberal economics.
Mitch Mitchell
March, Cambridgeshire
• For a generation, too much housing, private and social, has been built to low standards. Lynsley Hanley would do well to call for the revival of the late lamented Parker Morris standards for new house building, updated to reflect current environmental concerns (The slums of tomorrow, 3 February).
Cllr Sir Jeremy Beecham
Leader, LGA Labour Group
• As the ongoing housing shortage once again racks up double digit returns for the propertied class; will the coming election have any sort of real debate as to how this drives UK indebtedness and social division? Or will propertied self-interest always drive the peaks and troughs of boom and bust; dividends in the good years, bail-outs in the bad, and of course a high rent if it won’t sell.
Peter Hack
Bristol
• Generally sportsmen have a reputation for using unimaginative nicknames, although there are exceptions (Letters, 3 February). Leicester Tigers have this year played a centre who is simply known as “36″. His surname is Twelvetrees.
VJ Connor
Bishop Auckland, Co Durham
• Manchester City Art Gallery has mounted a display of The Disasters of War by Goya and the Chapman Brothers in … the Blair Room.
Tony Shelton
Grange-over-Sands, Cumbria

It was surprising that neither Polly Toynbee’s Comment piece nor your editorial on social care (2 February) recognised that much of what is now means-tested social care was provided freely by the NHS until as recently as the 1980s. When I worked in social services in the 1970s there was a clear dividing line between local authority and NHS care. That line was incontinence. If an individual wet or soiled themselves, they became an NHS responsibility. The Thatcher government significantly reduced NHS support for older people, leaving most to means-tested social care. Social security top-up fees allowed the private market to take over much of that care provision. Those who had paid tax and national insurance on the assumption of free NHS care in later life ended up paying again.
It’s time we recognised there are no clear divisions between what is social care and what is health. It is impossible and inhuman to try and differentiate between the two in common conditions such as dementia. The answer is to bring health and social care under the same organisational umbrella and provide both free. The consequent savings in shorter hospital stays will be huge and the tax system should be used to recoup the cost of care from the better off.
David Hinchliffe
Former chair, Commons health committee
• Before the election there are two opportunities to address the issue of long-term care: the forthcoming report of the health select committee and a white paper. Politicians of all parties should look further at the proposal for a care duty on people’s estates as a fair and simple way of paying for care.
Stephen Burke
Chief executive, Counsel and Care

George Monbiot’s moral, political and legal case against Blair is powerful (Mock this campaign if you like, but how else can Blair be held to account?, 2 February). It would, however, become unanswerable if we revisit the fallacious assumption that the only choice was between Iraqi misery under Saddam or the temporary misery of his efficient removal. But not only has the misery of his removal proven far more costly than assumed, Saddam’s grip was nothing like projected. Having lost control of Iraqi airspace and much of its ground territory to Kurdish, American and British forces, Saddam Hussein was in no position to resist demands for UN-monitored elections or human rights inspections and other measures to clear the ground for his removal in the medium term by the Iraqi people, with or without the support of other states.
This option would have allowed a more measured pursuit of the Afghanistan campaign as well as the long-term causes of the Middle East troubles. The neocon agenda that Blair followed hit all the wrong targets and undermined his legitimate case for humanitarian intervention. Very few may have expected a repentant Blair, but to publicly deny every lesson of Iraq by encouraging military action against Iran shows why he should be arrested, not just for what he has done, but for what he may help do.
Mohammad Nafissi
Human Rights and Social Justice Institute, London Metropolitan University
• When the Chilcot inquiry was set up it announced that, as and when necessary, it would seek evidence from foreign witnesses. It now urgently needs to do so.
Blair identified Goldsmith as the fall guy for the invasion of Iraq. He told Chilcot that had his attorney general given a firm opinion that the war was illegal, Britain would not have gone ahead. The implication he drew was that America would not have gone ahead alone. That is contradicted by the statement at the time by Donald Rumsfeld.
In discussing the attitude of France to resolution 1441, Straw said that it would have been undiplomatic to have asked an ally what they meant. Instead Goldsmith was dispatched to Washington to ask another ally where the first one stood. He was told that the French had admitted that their stance was wrong. This persuaded Goldsmith, although the French deny this interpretation.
The inquiry needs to clarify these matters, and the best way of doing so is to request appropriate French and American witnesses. Failure to comply would tell its own story.
Harvey Cole
Winchester, Hampshire
• David Clark is right to draw attention to the insights available from the late Robin Cook’s writings (Unlike Short, Cook was not conned. Chilcot needs him, 3 February). However, there were others who were equally sceptical. One, also no longer with us, was Adolfo Aguilar Zínser, the Mexican ambassador to the security council who found his briefing by MI6 unconvincing. He made the point that if a weapon system was so well hidden that it could not be found, it was unlikely to be able to be made ready in 45 minutes. This was the real reason why the security council would not have supported a second resolution, rather than the oft-cited claim of French obduracy.
Someone who can shed light on these events is the then Chilean ambassador, Juan Gabriel Valdés, who was briefed by his Mexican colleague. There was real doubt about the intelligence among those with access to it. If the Chilcot inquiry is interested in what happened, it will need to look further than it has done so far.
Professor Martin McKee
London
• I take issue with Simon Hoggart’s depiction of Clare Short (Vicky Pollard’s parallel universe, 3 January). He trivialises her account because it does not fit with that of the “boys” and was not as fluent. Is it only women brought up outside the boys’ school model who feel that she threatened the shifting power games as people changed their views to align with Blair? Sadly Hoggart follows the same pattern. It is interesting that only Elizabeth Wilmshurst and Clare Short have made sense to the audience in the gallery. Do they represent different voices of truth in a world of male-led wars?
Dr Janet Fairley
Edinburgh

Independent:

Dominic Lawson (2 February) is wrong to ridicule Ed Miliband for dismissing as “a mistake” the claim that Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035.
On 5 December, just before the Copenhagen climate summit, the BBC quoted the alarm of Professor J Graham Cogley of Ontario Trent University that the authors “had misread 2350 for 2035″. Professor Cogley quoted a 1996 document by Russian hydrologist V M Kotlykov which mentioned 2350 as the date by which there would be “massive and precipitate melting of glaciers”. Yes, the 2035 date was a mistake!
Millions of good, rational people, thousands of businesses and most governments are acting responsibly and humanely by promoting lifestyles and policies which will reduce pressure on our world for the sake of the poor, future generations and the planet itself. Climate change has become the main focus of this hugely positive revolution. Such is its scale that the science of climate change is inevitably going to be slightly woolly at this stage, but by the time the “deniers” are convinced, it will be too late to act.
The real question here is why a small group of pundits such as Mr Lawson, none of them scientists, are encouraging cynicism and complacency in the face of the greatest threat in human history.
Aidan Harrison
Rothbury, Northumberland
Bad behaviour by a few academics at the University of East Anglia does not magically cancel out all the evidence for man-made climate change. The last decade has included nine out of ten of the warmest years on record; glaciers are retreating; the Greenland icecap is melting, as is ice at the North Pole; and the world is experiencing more extreme weather conditions. That is why the Met Office, the British Antarctic Survey, Nasa, the European Space Agency, the Royal Society and the US National Academy of Sciences all tell us man-made climate change is happening.
So what do we need to do? The failure of the Copenhagen conference was the final proof that the world’s governments and peoples are not prepared to make the economic and lifestyle changes needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions enough – or at all.
Therefore it is vital that we now commit serious amounts of money to ending rainforest destruction, subsidising carbon capture and storage and researching into geo-engineering: ways of removing greenhouse gases or using other technologies to cool the planet. There is no other politically feasible strategy.
Richard Mountford
Founder, two per cent for the planet, Hildenborough, Kent
Iraq: a conflict of evidence
Simon Carr (3 February) suggests either Clare Short or Tony Blair is wrong in the accounts they have given to the Chilcot inquiry.
Mr Blair’s presentation was based on a hypothetical situation – if Saddam Hussein remained in power for another decade – which informed his belief and hence the decision to invade. Ms Short told the inquiry what actually happened among the decision-makers.
Which of these versions is more relevant to the remit of the Chilcot inquiry?
S Lawton
Kirklington, Oxfordshire
Remember, whatever Clare Short said at the Chilcot inquiry, she still voted for the invasion of Iraq and remained in the Cabinet while it took place. She too may be guilty of war crimes.
Peter Cunningham
Bath
As I have been reading the reports of the Chilcot inquiry, I have wondered what Robin Cook would have said had he lived. So today I re-read the resignation speech he made to the Commons on 17 March 2003: what a calm, thorough, well-argued but also moving speech that was.
How much such a principled and clear-thinking person is missed! His account of what went on behind the scenes would have been invaluable.
Christina Jones
Retford, Nottinghamshire
A E Baker asks (letter, 2 February) how we could know Iraq had WMDs without knowing where they were. Simple: we know we sold WMDs to Saddam for the proxy war against Iran, but we don’t know what he did with them afterwards.
George MacDonald Ross
Leeds
Check-list that saved lives
I was impressed by the candour of Mr Atul Gawande’s article “Without this checklist, I would have killed a man” (2 February), but stunned by the revelation of the surgical safety checklist.
In particular, I was surprised by the information that your Health Editor added, which contained the comment, “When the checklist was piloted by the World Health Organisation in eight hospitals last year, it cut deaths and complications by more than a third.”
The checklist, as outlined in the article, is almost identical to the one that was in use in British military hospitals throughout the world when I was working as an Army theatre sister in the early 1970s. It was done automatically, was taught to nursing and medical staff during their training and, I had assumed, was standard throughout the NHS. To find that this is not the case is almost beyond belief.
It seems that the military in-service training of nurses and medics during the 1960s and 1970s was way ahead of its time. A pity then, that all those establishments have since been closed. Think how many more lives could have been saved had they remained open to teach generations of staff some of the basic principles of patient care.
Jo Jones
Irby, Wirral
Not much of a voting reform
While any move away from our current voting system is probably to be welcomed (editorial, 3 February), whatever the short-term political calculus that may explain Gordon Brown’s deathbed conversion to electoral reform, I am not so sure that the replacement being proposed – the Alternative Vote (AV) – is a much better system.
First, there is very little evidence that it is actually more proportional. Indeed it may even be worse. And second, while it would mean that each MP is elected by a majority of their constituents, is this much of an improvement where this majority is built on the second, third or lower preferences of electors with little enthusiasm for the winning candidate?
During my adult life I have lived in 14 parliamentary constituencies and have only ever been represented once by an MP whom I would have voted for as my first choice. In most of the others, I have had little or no confidence in my MPs’ interest or inclination to take my views seriously. This would change only little under AV.
Like many others, I support the linkage between an MP and their constituency. But I have never understood why this can be maintained only in a single-member constituency.
Far better to have larger multi-member constituencies where electors can choose which of their representatives to take their problems to; where MPs can specialise in dealing with certain types of issues or groups; where corrupt members can be replaced by those from the same party; and where they are forced to act together, regardless of political persuasion, to advance the general interests of all their constituents.
This could be achieved by the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system which, by the way, is also far more proportional.
Dr Andrew Meads
Reigate, Surrey
A long wait for battery recycling
At last the UK catches up with Europe (“Battery recycling law in force”, 1 February). I recall a visit to Sweden in 1972, where the supermarkets had battery recycling boxes prominently displayed, and they were full. And Swedes were quick to spell out the dangers of sending them to landfill.
On returning to the UK in 1978 I vowed to recycle my own. After collecting them for 20 years without finding a recycling source, I rang the council as I needed to dispose of them as I was moving house. I got told off for storing hazardous material and not sending it to landfill.
Special dispensation was given to take them to the council’s central depot, but even then it was a job to get the operative to take them – too much paperwork, he said.
With the shops now obliged to take old batteries, I do hope a system has been created for collecting and disposing of them safely. Maybe they will all be sent to Sweden.
Alan Cooper
Trowbridge, Wiltshire
Homeopathy worked for me
Many writers in your letters pages seem to want to persuade me why homeopathy should not work.
About 20 years ago I had a very unpleasant experience with “normal” medicine, where I went into hospital with kidney stones, and came out with kidney stones but without the painkillers that had enabled me to manage the pain. Since then I have gone to a homeopath about once a month.
It is possible that it works using the placebo effect; it is possible that it works as a “talking therapy”; it is possible that it works as it is supposed to: but I am happy that it works.
I am unhappy with the way that our government seems to want to regulate most aspects of my life, and unhappy that some of your readers seem to want to do the same.
David Partridge
Bridport, Dorset
All this recent correspondence about homeopathy and what it can and cannot do set me thinking about the feeling of peace and wellbeing I experience sitting out in the garden under my vine. Is the feeling for real or is it just the “gazebo effect”?
Max Beran
Didcot, Oxfordshire
British and unbreakable
Inspired by Graham P Davis’s letter on the subject of unbreakable glasses (30 January), I went to my kitchen store cupboard and dug out a specimen of the selfsame “Crystolac” glass that he describes.
Not only did it survive the war in Wales (it bears the same two dots as Mr Davis’s, indicating 1942 as the year of manufacture), but also a removal to England, and, after the death of my grandmother from whose house I rescued it, a journey by old Land Rover to London.
Although now slightly grey around the gills, it appears still to be as tough as old (British) boots, and I wonder how many more Crystolacs there are out there, tucked away in attics and cellars, or even still in use.
Mike Ricketts
London W5
Briefly…
Pope’s opponents
One does not need to be a “secularist” or a gay rights activist (letters, 3 February) to have been appalled by the Pope’s attack on UK equality legislation. Many Christians of different denominations will have been equally appalled.
Professor David Maughan Brown
York St John University
Origins of genocide
Robert Fisk (30 January) is of course right to demand greater recognition of the Armenian genocide. However, he is wrong to describe it as the first holocaust of the 20th century. This title should unfortunately go to the Herero and Namaqua genocide, in what is now Namibia, perpetrated by the German colonisers. Nazi Germany learned to commit genocide from its own colonial history as well as the Ottoman Turks.
Mark Andrews
Edinburgh
Mental health
Your article “You don’t have to be bipolar to be a genius but it helps” (3 February) is a great contrast to the usual negative press reports of people with mental health problems. The image of knife- wielding psychos is common. Articles such as yours highlight that those with mental health problems can be “witty and inventive”. This can only help young people feel more comfortable about emotional problems and access help before they escalate to crisis point. Let’s hope that other newspapers follow The Independent’s example.
Hannah Smith
YoungMinds, London EC1
‘Good for you’
What a sad world Philip Hensher (1 February) must live in. He asks, “Can you say ‘I’m pleased for you’ in a sincere way?” My days are brightened by hearing about good things happening to other people. I say “Good for you!” when someone is making a special effort – to face up to the boss or spring-clean the garage; and “I’m really pleased for you!” when something has happened – a promotion, or a baby sleeping through the night. Some of us are happy to encourage or praise others, even when they’re over the age of 10.
Liz Inwood
Cardington, bedfordshire
Neglected stars
There were two glaring British omissions from your “100 Years of Stars”, Michael Caine and Sir Sean Connery.
Alex Noble
Belfast

Times:

Sir, Britain must maintain significant maritime Forces to enact its expeditionary, or maritime, strategy (“Carriers versus tanks: sea commanders battle for resources”, Feb 2). It would be foolish to suppose that future conflicts will always be similar to the Afghanistan experience.
It is equally foolish for army officers and the Conservative Party to assume that we will only ever have to fight irregular opponents. A quick glance at any naval reference book illustrates that the potential threat from an Iran or a Russia would require not only aircraft carriers but also escort vessels to defeat their air assets, submarines and surface warships. Look at the naval building programmes and aspirations of China and Russia.
Gary Blackburn
Walkington, E Yorks
Sir, It is a misnomer to describe all military spending as defence. The protection of the UK’s territorial homeland does not require anything like the amount currently spent on defence. This island is not in any way “defended” by having distant water capabilities, long-range aircraft, troops in the Indian Ocean, desert warfare training or even nuclear submarines. Most European countries have none of these and feel themselves properly defended.
Our politicians enjoy believing themselves to be big boys in the playground by having these offensive capabilities so they can enjoy the vanity of joining in with the biggest boy of all, the United States. There is, however, no value to the UK taxpayer in allowing this conceit.
Jan Manning
West Chiltington, W Sussex
Sir, The RAF has 43,600 people to support its 343 combat aircraft and 140 helicopters (“The future of defence”, Feb 1). That’s 90 people for each one. No room for savings there, then.
Sir Richard Johnstone
Much Dewchurch, Herefordshire
Sir, Malcolm Rifkind’s article (Opinion, Feb 1) and your leading article (Feb 1) both talk about the need for a fundamental rethink of what our defence strategy should be aiming to achieve, and that this should happen before the Strategic Defence Review, which both the main parties have promised will take place after the election.
Yet you report on your front page (Feb 1) the Prime Minister’s announcement of his pledges on aircraft carriers, numbers of troops and the Joint Strike Fighter. To commit to the detail before the strategy has been decided upon is the wrong way round — even if it is consistent with the way the Prime Minister seems to work.
Tony Elgood
Winford, N Somerset
Sir, Daniel Finkelstein (Opinion, Feb 3) asks whether we could sleep at night if a regime that executes dissidents acquired nuclear weapons. Why not? Internal repression is no proof of aggressive intent, let alone towards the UK.
The most dangerous Soviet provocations to the West (Berlin, Cuba) occurred during the Khrushchev Thaw, not the Stalin Terror. And if he and Tony Blair are trying to sign the country up for a war against Iran, let them travel to the region and volunteer for any army that will have them while we stay snug in bed.
Leofranc Holford-Sttrevens
Oxford
Sir, As part of the restructure of our Forces, I suggest that the Ministry of Defence reverts to its former name of “The War Office”, as this more accurately describes its activities in the past two decades.
Duncan Heenan
Niton, Isle of Wight

Sir, You claim that Israel has a “strong domestic desire to hold itself to account” while also acknowledging that reprimands for two Israeli army officers over Gaza is “an indefensibly cursory punishment” (“White phosphorus”, leading article, Feb 2). Which is it? Surely the latter disproves the former.
The United Nations, Amnesty and other human rights organisations, and numerous journalists — including those from The Times — have compiled evidence of apparent war crimes committed by both Palestinian armed groups and Israeli forces during the Gaza conflict.
After an unconvincing set of denials about its own forces’ use of white phosphorus, Israel is now being wholly unconvincing in response to the UN’s call to establish credible, independent investigations into alleged war crimes. The same is true of Hamas.
The region’s deadly cycle of occupation and conflict is never going to be broken if we accept these pathetic substitutes for real justice.
Kate Allen
Director, Amnesty International UK

Bob Bates wrote:
“…conflict is never going to be broken until Israel goes back to its legitimate borders.”
Peter Cressall

Exactly Peter…1948 borders, nothing less.
February 4, 2010 12:56 AM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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thomas eisner wrote:
1946 Nurnberg Goering guilty of war crimes,
2006 Milsovic found dead in his cell in the Hague
2010 Livni and Barak should also be put on trial as they too have committed crimes against humanity
February 4, 2010 12:11 AM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Janet Denning wrote:
@Manzoor-ul Haq,
such warmongering. Salaam. To say ‘muslims’ are committed to liberating Palestine suggests muslims speak internationally in concert, yet tribal and factional infighting shouts otherwise. Yes, muslims and the despotic govts you mention should respond to the problem with one voice, but where is that voice, like the GCC to name but one? As toothless as the UN in their obeisance to others. As for Salahu’din, a warrior maybe, but he’d turn in his grave to think he’d been brought into this toxic mix.
February 3, 2010 11:20 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Manzoor-ul Haq wrote:
Muslim world should respond with one voice that it will never recognise the state of Israel. Why should it be any different, west does not recognise Northern Cyprus or Taiwan, Russia refuses to recognise Kosovo? Muslims remain committed liberating the whole of the historical Palestine again no different from west’s mantra in the first Gulf War.

Of course, the neighbouring despotic governments who while attacking Israel in their speeches are in reality protecting it. Muslims learn from 13th century Salahadeen reality of overcoming foreign occupation; it requires political unity to marshal all the resources.

February 3, 2010 9:16 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Robin Kempster wrote:
The wording of the reprimand was probably something like ” next time you do it, don’t get found out “.

February 3, 2010 7:32 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Peter Cressall wrote:
Kate Allen: let’s get to the basic problem, rather than the symptoms: the region’s deadly cycle of occupation and conflict is never going to be broken until Israel goes back to its legitimate borders. All other discussion is a waste of time.

Sir, Lord Sacks (Opinion, Feb 3) is wrong about the Equality Bill. And for all his protestations to the contrary, appears, like the Pope, to want the very “privileged status” for religious beliefs that he concedes is inappropriate in a democratic society.
There was a time when we were all free to discriminate with impunity. Landlords could refuse to house Jewish people. Employers could sack pregnant women. Cinemas could refuse entry to wheelchair users. That we are now less free, because discrimination has been made unlawful, is a cause for celebration and does not constitute the State trampling on our rights as individuals.
If I refuse to employ a gay man because I have an irrational prejudice against homosexuals, then it is right that he should be able to take me to a tribunal. Why should it be different just because the justification for my prejudice is Leviticus or St Paul?
Christopher Camp
Lichfield, Staffs
Sir, Ruth Gledhill’s advocacy (Feb 2) of Locke’s Letter Concerning Toleration seems to overlook that he excluded atheists and Catholics. Locke also condemned the gay practices of the Earl of Rochester. Given the factions in the debate on religious freedom, it is quite a feat to choose the only great book that expressly leaves them all out.
Duncan McGibbon
Bath, Avon

Bob Bates wrote:
When Big Religion feels its priviledges are being eroded, it fights back, and that is just what Rabbi Sacks is doing.
It’s high time that religion is swept out of schools and parliament, back into synagogues, temples and churches.
Where is Edward Longshanks when you need him?
February 4, 2010 1:36 AM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Trudi Morris wrote:
Thank you Mr Skermer, I was responding to a comment that seems to have been removed.

I would still disagree with you intently, I think your use of the word priviledge is ill founded. I think the stance taken by the Pope and our own Bishops is entirely correct. To flip your own coin, it’s an abuse of Executive privilege to try and destroy the State religion in this way or any other.

They had no mandate for it or for very much of what they appear to have ‘achieved’. Not very democratic at all.

February 4, 2010 12:37 AM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Laurence Skermer wrote:
Trudi, I think you have misread. It is not religion that is inappropriate in a democracy, it is a priviledged status for its adherents that is wrong.
February 3, 2010 10:12 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Trudi Morris wrote:
Religion is not inappropriate in a democracy, although I’m not sure what kind of democracy you think Britain is. A rapidly shrinking one from where I’m sitting.

Sir, As the headmaster of a secondary school Martin Stephen is at a disadvantage when discussing the merits of teaching Mandarin to children in our schools (Thunderer, Feb 3). He writes of it being “fiendishly difficult”. It is — for secondary age pupils.
This derives in part from it being a tonal language and we begin to lose our ability to discriminate tonal variation from the age of about 7. The idea of waiting until the sixth form before teaching Mandarin, as he suggests, wastes an opportunity. We should be teaching it to our infants.
Chris McGovern
Headmaster, St Anthony’s Prep School, London NW3

Thomas Hope wrote:
Teaching children to speak Mandarin which along with its variations is spoken by the largest population and fastest growing large economy on Earth seems like a no-brainer.
For adults, learning a tonal language, as I tried, can get you into more problems than one could imagine.
February 3, 2010 10:53 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Peter Cressall wrote:
The earlier the exposure to any language, the better. Those of us who have learned languages as young children and also as adults know that the older one is, the harder it is to learn. Mandarin is just that much more difficult to learn as an adult.

Sir, I agree with Richard Morrison’s views (times2, Feb 3) over the withdrawal from public view of the Victoria and Albert Museum’s instrument collection, but the root of the problem goes far deeper. The BBC, for instance, does not promote classical music in the same way that pop music is supported. Newsround, specifically targeted at children, is a case in point where if any music is mentioned, it is always about pop.
It could be argued that two radio channels (Radio 3 and Classic FM) address the balance, but they don’t, as they target those who already like and appreciate classical music. We need to educate our children to the joys of classical music by inclusion in programmes such as Newsround. The balance is wrong and, until corrected, institutions such as the V&A will continue contributing to the demise of classical music.
Richard Lester
Cirencester, Glos

Thomas Hope wrote:
Must have missed a lot whilst away from UK for 30 years, but Trudi says that music lessons in schools have been withdrawn. I would have thought that an enthusiastic teacher and young pupils was the ideal way to introduce life-long enjoyment of classical music whilst accepting the children’s love of current pop.
February 3, 2010 11:02 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Trudi Morris wrote:
Mr Duffay

As our national broadcasters remit is to Inform, Educate and Entertain, the BBC do have a role promoting art in all it’s guises, not just the trendy or fleeting.

I would go further and say that music lessons in schools shouldn’t have been withdrawn. It must be harder to enjoy classical music when you haven’t got a clue what you are listening to, or even which instrument.
February 3, 2010 9:12 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Bill Duffay wrote:
I sort of agree, though it’s a shame that once again it’s apparently all the fault of the BBC. Is everything the BBC’s fault?!
Government is clearly partly to blame. Where was classical music in ‘cool britania’? And the whole misguided and frankly rather ignorant demand that orchestras develop new audiences misses the point that they cannot easily do it in isolation! It’s not the LSO’s fault if schools or government or ITV neglect and marginalise and degrade classical music.

Sir, I read with amusement the report (Feb 2) of a lady “defying the odds” in buying half-dozen eggs that all had double-yolks.
If the probability of a single egg having a double-yolk is 1 in 1,000 (0.1 per cent) then the probability of all six having double-yolkers would be 1 in 1 trillion (10^18) if, and only if, the probability of each egg having a double-yolk was independent of the rest. This is unlikely given that double-yolkers are most frequently produced by highly productive hens.
Dr Graham Cookson
King’s College London

Bob Bates wrote:
For once The Times got it right when it comes to numbers.
Congratulations!
February 4, 2010 1:41 AM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Malleus Sacerdotes wrote:
It is similar to claiming that if only 1 in 100 men play the bagpipes and the first six men I see are all pipers, the odds are 10 to power 12.

The odds are somewhat shortened by my standing next to the bandstand at a Highland Gathering.

Sir, As an avid times2 “Wordwatcher”, I was intrigued to see the inclusion of “WEM” (WordWatching, Feb 2), defined as: “To disfigure, mutilate (a person, his body). To impair (the mind). To injure (a thing).”
Many of our friends who live in the delightful Shropshire village of this name are considering their positions.
Lyndon Sheppard
Oswestry, Shropshire

Telegraph:

SIR – “Force children to care for the elderly” (report, February 2)? Only in Britain could such a thing be thought necessary.
No other country in the world needs legislation or coercion for children to care for their parents. We should be ashamed of ourselves that the state is the first port of call for care of our parents.

Norman Freedman
Northwood, Middlessex
SIR – I spend almost every afternoon in a care home where elderly residents suffer from dementia with physical disability. Care is a 24-hour job and cannot properly be provided by home visits from care-workers or family.
In wanting to “force” care by younger relatives, Baroness Deech ignores the incompatibility of working and providing efficient care.
As disability and dementia advance, the quality of life for both parties diminishes and will finally reduce to agonising and ineffective attempts at management. Her prescription is doomed to failure.
Rebecca Goldsmith
London SW11
SIR – Lady Deech seems oblivious to the indisputable fact that no child in the world ever asked to be born.
We decide by design or accident to bring children into this world, and with that comes the obligation to care for them. The reward is to see one’s children succeeding in their chosen profession.
As a pensioner myself, I would dread to think that my children should feel obliged to look after me, because they owe me nothing.
Richard Barcock
Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire
SIR – Born in the middle of the last war, my wife and I have, without any family assistance ourselves, been able to help our three adult children acquire their own first homes and continue to support our three grandchildren in small but meaningful ways. We are still expected to prop up our own elderly parents when required. No medals or recognition are required.
This fortunate position is despite perpetual central and local government impositions on our earning capacity throughout our working lives, as well as on our savings and pensions. This is effectively an assault on our independence and ability to look after ourselves without state support.
Simon Bocock
Bicester, Oxfordshire
SIR – Who would “enforce” this care for parents? It suggests an opportunity for another quango, perhaps Epic (Elderly Parents Inspection Commission).
In pursuit of engaging even more state employees, the present Government might just be inclined to such an Epic.
Derek Chapplow
York
Preferred bird beds
SIR – Francis-Carlo Bernhardi (Letters, February 3) asks why blue-tits visiting his bird house have undone all his hard work by removing the paper shreddings used to line the box.
He shouldn’t take any offence. They are tidy and fastidious birds. When they arrive in a box that appears to have been previously occupied, they will give it a spring-clean and remove the contents before filling it with their own material.
Blue-tits are also smart. Mr Bernhardi’s visitors carried the unwanted material some distance away and deposited it in a hedge so it doesn’t draw predators’ attention to the nest.
If you are putting a nest box out now, there is no need to put anything in it: a house-proud garden bird would much rather procure its own furnishings.
Val Osborne
RSPB
Sandy, Bedfordshire
SIR – It is no wonder that the blue-tits removed the shredded paper. They like to line their nests with mint and lavender to kill bacteria and create a sterile environment for their young.
Wendy Alexandra Page
Horsham, West Sussex
Constitutional injustice
SIR – Gordon Brown (report, February 3) continues to talk of constitutional change, but as we have seen time and time again, he and the Labour Party refuse to confront the injustice of a proper constitutional settlement for England.
Until both are prepared to renounce their selfish interests and recognise the constitutional injustice of the West Lothian Question and the right of the people of England to determine their own domestic laws – without the unjustified interference of those from other parts of the United Kingdom – their zeal for change will always seem hollow.
Professor Jeremy Dibble
Durham University
Durham
Forgotten patient letters
SIR – The NHS Plan, published by the Government a decade ago, recommended that by 2004 sending letters to patients after consultations should be routine practice (Letters February 3).
As a paediatrician, I have written to parents after every consultation for the past 15 years with few problems. Despite the NHS Plan, presentations given around the country and online teaching modules, I share your correspondent’s frustration that this has not been widely adopted, except perhaps in paediatrics.
Dr Charles Essex
Coventry
SIR – I frequently give patients written instructions and diagnoses.
In addition, I am lucky in that many of my patients bring me written instructions, downloaded from the internet, thus keeping me on the straight and narrow.
Dr Diane Lang
Kingston, Surrey
The best hairdressers
SIR – Peter Rowley (Letters, February 2) asks if it is possible to get a traditional haircut (without the electric trimmers, the music and the conversation) from a male hairdresser in this country. Why does he not use a female hairdresser?
Mine satisfies the first two of his requirements. I’m not bothered by the lack of silence.
Mike Cole
Bridgwater, Somerset
Blame over defence kit
SIR – It is easy to lay the blame for the £35 billion overspend in defence procurement at the door of the Ministry of Defence (report, February 1). Most contracts for military equipment have a large element of political interference in their instigation and do not always reflect the wishes of the receiving service.
For example, the Shorts Tucano training aircraft resulted from a desire to repay Brazilian support during the Falklands War; what the RAF really wanted was the Pilatus PC9.
During the 1980s, when I worked at BAe Warton, the Experimental Aircraft Project technology demonstrator was already flying and could have been developed as a fighter, or the RAF could have bought the F16s offered by America, but the Government wished to support European integration and the result was the Eurofighter Typhoon.
Similarly, the Airbus A400M was forced on the RAF, which would have preferred off-the-shelf C-17s and C-130Js. The Airbus’s into-service date slips ever more into the future, with spiralling costs.
The Nimrod MRA4 was a cheap, keep-jobs-at-home solution, like the earlier Nimrod Airborne Early Warning programme, which should have been a warning about the difficulties of integrating modern systems with a 1950s design. The MRA4 has cost billions more than forecast, but has so far not been brought into service.
Phil Mobbs
Marlborough, Wiltshire
Longer-lasting fruit
SIR – There is little point in having a tomato with a shelf-life of 45 days (report, February 1), but doubling normal survivability could be of considerable benefit to the housewife and to the processor.
Most fruits need a plant hormone, ethylene, to complete ripening. A decade ago, a collaboration between Nottingham University, ICI and Horticulture Research International developed a tomato using genetic manipulation that made less ethylene than normal and therefore ripened more slowly.
After a brief dalliance, the supermarkets turned their faces against GM tomatoes, despite no adverse effects of the technique being found from tests.
The long-term benefit of ethylene manipulation means that fruit spoilage in the field or on the shelf could be drastically reduced, helping to feed hungry people.
Dr Graeme Hobson
Angmering, West Sussex
Nuclear energy is better value than solar panels
SIR – I realise that basic sums are not this Government’s strong point, but why on earth do they want to encourage people to “invest” £12,500 in solar
panels, just to bespoil their houses and generate only £900 – about £130 at market rates – of electricity a year (report, February 2)?
It is debatable if this energy would even ever exceed that used to manufacture, deliver, install, clean and maintain the units and inverter circuits needed.
Why bother anyway when the electricity could be purchased, carbon-free, from nuclear power stations in Britain or France for a tiny fraction of this cost?
Philip Haynes
St Peter Port, Guernsey
SIR – I am astounded that the Government is offering grants for the installation of solar panels.
A brochure from the Energy Saving Trust says that a 2.5kW photovoltaic system costing about £15,000 can provide around 2,100 kWhr per year.
At 10p/kWhr, roughly the market rate, this is worth £210, giving a pay-back time for a household and the Government of
71 years.
Gavin McDowall
Musselburgh, East Lothian
SIR – I currently pay about 9p for 1kWh of electricity from my supplier. If I install a solar panel, I can sell my surplus power to my supplier for 41.3p per kWh. My supplier will then sell it back to me, when I need it, for about 9p.
Am I on a different economic planet to the bright spark who came up with this splendid idea?
Michael Walsh
Marlborough, Wiltshire

Irish Times:

Protecting the disabled from abuse
Madam, – I read with sadness reports concerning complaints of mistreatment of people with disabilities in some residential centres (Invisible Lives, Features, February 2nd). In my work with the advocacy projects supported by the Citizens’ Information Board,  I have become aware of widely diverging standards in residential centres around the country – some excellent, some leaving much to be desired, but none subject to inspections, despite the introduction of standards by Health Information and Quality Authority in 2009.
The majority of those with disabilities who live in residential centres are vulnerable and not in a position to complain without assistance. Some have no next-of-kin. Under the National Disability Strategy it was envisaged that  an independent advocacy service would provide an advocate to help such people to have their voices heard, in particular with regard to complaints, reviews and assessments of need.
A pilot programme was set up five years ago and almost 50 advocates are working  across the country. They do not yet have statutory powers – which are sometimes needed and which were to form part of a Personal Advocacy Service to be run by the Citizens’ Information Board .
The results of official inquiries into past complaints of abuse have shown it takes extraordinary courage for staff in institutions to become whistle-blowers; and that even when they find that courage they can easily be silenced.
External inspection and the availability of independent advocates are the way to ensure that high standards – which do exist in places – are maintained, and bad practices rooted out. Funding must be found for these essential services. – Yours, etc,
MAIRIDE WOODS,
Del Val Avenue, Dublin 13.
Merging Arts Council and department
Madam, – With all the discussions regarding ongoing funding of the arts in Ireland and the interrelated discussions about Irish branding through the arts, hasn’t the time come to review the “how” of funding the arts in Ireland?
Given the developments in the arts and the skills and knowledge acquired by the permanent officials in the Department of Arts since its creation by the brilliant Michael D Higgins TD, isn’t it time to consider absorbing or merging the Arts Council with its parent department?
The Arts Council has to respond each year to the parent department and the Department of Finance as well as the office of the Comptroller and Auditor General. Given the numerically small population in this State, shouldn’t we now look at best value and funding for practising artists and direct the bulk of our arts expenditure towards them and utilise the skills, knowledge and proven administrative skills of the Department of Arts and, by reducing administration costs, transfer that funding to the practising artist, thereby achieving a greater degree of direct arts support? – Yours, etc,
CIARÁN MacGONIGAL,
(Former Arts Council member),
Edgeworthstown,
Co Longford.
Cut in price of prescription drugs
Madam, – Why is the Government patting itself on the back for price reductions from branded drug manufacturers, when most of the drugs on the list are already off-patent for years and are readily available in generic form? Examples are ibuprofen, amoxicillin, diclofenac, carvedilol and metronidazole.
Why doesn’t the Government tender to Irish generic companies for the supply of these drugs? (There are many who can supply them locally). Why don’t we introduce a policy whereby if a cheaper form of the drug is available from an Irish manufacturer then the HSE should favour this?
I was a public patient in hospital last May and was given brand leader paracetamol for pain relief. When I questioned the nurse as to why a much cheaper version of paracetamol was not being used, she couldn’t explain. Multiply that by every patient in every hospital and paracetamol alone, one of the cheaper drugs, will give a significant saving. Use this policy with all off-patent drugs and the savings become much more effective.
But no, we prefer to reduce wages of dedicated nursing staff and make other cuts at the frontline of healthcare where the patient suffers as a result.
I am appalled at the Government’s lack of action and feel ashamed to be Irish in the current leadership situation. If the Government thinks it is hoodwinking the public with this “throwing of crumbs” gesture of health sector cost cutting, it needs to think again and take some real action.
Of course any cost-cutting is welcome, but this is just a drop in the ocean of what is achievable. Is this what we pay our hard-earned taxes for? – Yours, etc,
CAIT BRENNAN,
Hazelwood,
Loughrea, Co Galway.
Madam, – while the recent price reductions of many off-patent prescription medicines is a move which is widely to be welcomed, the manner in which it has been done is not.
Pharmacists were given 10 days’ notice of exactly which products were to be reduced – 10 days to dispense everything on their shelves that they had bought at the previously higher price or dispense it at a sizeable loss after February 1st. To give one example, a pack of 30 Zofran 8mg tablets, used for post-chemotherapy nausea and vomiting, cost €208.44 before February 1st. This now costs €125.06 – a great reduction, but what about the pharmacists who had this product on their shelves before this magical list was released? They will be dispensing this at a loss. How many businesses are expected to sell the stock they paid for at a loss, and one of such magnitude?
It is a sorry day when pharmacists will have to make the decision either not to regularly keep items such as this in stock or to risk having the carpet pulled from under their feet again. What is the point in pharmacies opening late to facilitate people who are working, or who have just been discharged from hospital in need of vital medicine, when they cannot afford to risk keeping any stock?
Another point which seems to have been missed by the mainstream media is that the prices on the list are the prices the wholesaler buys the drugs from the manufacturer. The wholesaler then adds its mark-up before selling them to the pharmacist. To say the list is misleading is putting it mildly. – Yours, etc,
STELLA HANCOCK MPSI,
Rockfield Green,
Maynooth,
Co Kildare.
Anglo Irish Bank’s 0% loan offer
Madam, – What on Earth is the point of our (borrowed) resources being used to subsidise a property investment company (Front page, February 3rd)? Can we as a State borrow money at 0 per cent?
It shows us that there still is no clarity within Anglo Irish Bank and that accounting tricks are still being used to deny reality. – Yours, etc,
TOM CONROY,
Maxwell Road, Dublin 6.
Controversy over incineration plan
Madam, – The Minister for the Environment may philosophise about waste management. But philosophy won’t get rid of the 700,000 tons generated in Dublin which is currently going to landfill. The local authorities can’t indulge themselves in philosophy – they have to get rid of the waste.
Even the most environmentally conscious Dubliners will still have a lot of waste left over after their best recycling efforts. The choice for the remainder is simple. Dump it in ever-bulging landfills or burn it in a modern incinerator and generate electricity in the process.
As a resident of Sandymount, I want my waste dealt with locally rather than driven 20 miles to be dumped in a hole in Co Kildare.
The ESRI report states (Home News, February 3rd) there is no underlying rationale for Minister Gormley’s proposed waste policy. An Bord Pleanála has approved the incinerator. The EPA has approved the incinerator. The ESRI supports it. Let’s get on with it. – Yours, etc,
BRENDAN BURGESS,
Farney Park,
Sandymount,
Dublin 4.
Madam, – Construction appears to have commenced on the greater Dublin region Poolbeg incinerator in advance of a number of 12-month baseline studies which we understand to be a prior requirement of the An Bord Pleanála permission.
A number of other issues such as the final long-term destination, treatment and disposal of incinerator ashes over the entire 20-25 year lifetime of the plant have not been definitively answered. At the oral hearing it was stated that it is proposed to export bottom and fly ash residues from the nearby coal quay at present to an unstated destination abroad. That seems to be still the case. The Bord Pleanála decision simply makes a condition in regard to storage of flue gas residues.
“Flue gas residues shall not be stored at any location outside the boundaries of the site of the proposed development in such quantities as to result in the storage area becoming an Establishment for the purposes of the European Union Major Accidents Directive.” (Condition 12)
There is no condition regarding the export, treatment or disposal of all waste incinerator ashes. It seems that it is still left as a matter for the incinerator company to decide at any point.
Over the past few weeks the waste-to-energy company has referred to providing district heating to 50,000-60,000 homes from the plant. The pipeline routes, land acquisition costs and construction cost of the necessary pipelines have not been publicised. No Environmental Impact Statement has been done, nor has it been revealed who is to pay for them.
A key objective of the Dublin district heating project feasibility studies has been to identify large new build developments which are most suited to the implementation of district heating, to be run by “an appointed district heating company.”
The most suitable recipients for proposed connection to the incinerator waste heating supply have been identified as Docklands and the, as yet unbuilt upon, IGB sites.
In reply to a question by Bord Pleanála’s inspector it was stated that no specific application to provide district heating from the proposed incinerator was before the board at that time.
If part of the income of the incinerator company is to be derived from an, as yet unpublished, unapplied for permission for district heating from the Poolbeg incinerator, to a select number of new build developments, we feel it should have been part of the oral hearing debate.
The project information supplied to the public-private partnership stated the successful bidder (for the Poolbeg incinerator project) “will be entitled to charge a gate fee in respect of waste thermally treated and will be able to generate income from a number of other sources”.
The Minister has indicated he is studying the contract between the waste-to-energy company and the local authority.
We feel construction work should cease until all these issues have been resolved and either a judicial review and/or a reopening of the oral hearing takes place. – Yours, etc,
LORNA KELLY,
Sandymount Merrion
Residents Association,
Castle Park,
Sandymount, Dublin 4.
Exceeding the 30km/h limit
Madam, – It was most disheartening and upsetting to read the degrading headline “Go-slow ‘feels like elderly aunt pootering to Mass” and comment within Ronan McGreevy’s article, “one feels like an elderly spinster aunt pootering to Mass once a week in a Morris Minor” (Home News, February 2nd).
I appreciate Mr McGreevy’s frustration in relation to the recently imposed speed restrictions within Dublin’s city centre, however these ageist comments have absolutely no place in Irish society in 2010 and only serve to marginalise older people and reinforce negative stereotyping.
Headlines that incite public resentment to one particular category of people within society, in this instance the mature motorist, are ill placed. – Yours, etc,
PATRICIA FEHIN,
Lecturer-Practitioner (Gerontological Nursing)
CATHERINE McAULEY,
School of Nursing Midwifery,
Brookfield Health Sciences Complex,
University College Cork,
Cork.
Madam, – There has been much ill-informed comment about the new 30km/h speed limit in Dublin city centre, with some people claiming “you could walk faster”, or (more realistically) that many cyclists go faster. The truth is that only the fittest cyclists will do 30km/h on the flat, and Usain Bolt’s world record 100m run was at a speed of 37.58km/h.
As for the inconvenience to motorists, driving from Church Street to the Custom House at 30km/h will take you 48 seconds longer than doing the same distance at 50km/h – assuming the road is clear and you have green lights all the way. There is thus no rational reason to oppose the measure.
Once people get used to driving at 30km/h they will indeed find that it is a far more pleasant, calmer experience than the mad race between red lights that motorists presently tend to go in for.
The measure will make a huge difference to the quality of life in the city. Nearly everyone who uses the city: shoppers, tourists, revellers, residents and others, are pedestrians, and it is their interests that must be paramount.
Up to now, Dublin’s traffic management has been unremittingly pedestrian-hostile, most notably in the extremely long waiting times at pedestrian crossings, and the incredible detours people must make in many places even to cross the road.
The new speed limits will make it possible to get around on foot, to have a conversation without being drowned by traffic noise – and will undoubtedly attract more tourists and visitors to Dublin city centre. – Yours, etc,
JONIVAR SKULLERUD,
Wilfield Road,
Sandymount,
Dublin 4.
Nama spelt out
Madam, – For simplification could Nama be described as a buy and sell operation with hopefully a profit? – Yours, etc,
TOM FULLER,
Butterfield Orchard,
Rathfarnham,
Dublin 14.
One embassy closure . . .
Madam, – The Department of Foreign Affairs has rightly opposed the McCarthy commission’s suggestion that this country should close embassies abroad. Sweden’s decision to close its embassy in Dublin, however, gives the department an opportunity to comply with “An Bord Snip Nua” and save money without causing offence.
Closing our embassy in Stockholm can no longer be claimed to be a sensitive issue. Our embassy in Helsinki could deal with Swedish affairs as Swedish is one of Finland’s official languages. – Yours, etc,
SEAMUS MARTIN,
Rue Mirabeau,
Puisserguier, France.
Church’s role in primary education
Madam, – I must take issue with Colm Fitzpatrick’s statement that “Atheism is as much a belief system as any faith” (February 3rd). This assumes the existence of God(s); with a choice of believing in that existence, or believing otherwise. This is not so. As far as I am aware there is no verifiable proof for the existence of any God (although I will gladly examine any should it become available), only a variety of religions that believe in such a deity’s existence. Atheism is not comparable to any belief system, in the same way that dark is not the opposite of light, it is the absence of light. – Yours, etc,
CARL BROWN,
Mount Eagle,
Dublin 18.
Madam, – Fr Seán McDonagh (February 3rd) maintains there is a difference between “covering up” and “actively facilitating” clerical child abuse. Perhaps the following will clarify the matter for him.
If a priest in the Dublin diocese had substantiated complaints of child abuse made against him and the church authorities did not remove him from all public pastoral roles and also failed to report the matter to the Garda Síochána then they engaged in a cover-up.
If they subsequently relocated the offending priest to a new diocese and employed him in a public pastoral role involving children they were “actively facilitating” his abuse by offering him the means and opportunity to abuse children.– Yours, etc,
PAUL McCARTHY,
Eildon Road,
Ashwood,
Melbourne,
Australia.
Madam, – I always enjoy Fintan O’Toole’s column, even if it sometimes skirts around some realities in favour of a good rant! He states (Opinion, February 2nd) that “no one can train to be a primary teacher in Ireland unless he or she is either a believing Christian or is prepared to pretend to be so”.
On Page 8 (Home News, also February 2nd) an article states that the online Hibernia College “now graduates more primary-school teachers each year than any other programme in the State with its higher diploma in arts in primary education”.
I have just scoured Hibernia’s excellent website and the only mention of “religion” is as one of 18 items in the course content.
Unless there is an entirely hidden part of the application process, the word Christian does not appear anywhere. – Yours, etc,
PETER KEANE,
Nutley Park,
Dublin 4.
Madam, – What a great article by Fintan O’Toole on the predicament facing non-Catholic teachers in this country (Opinion, February 2nd). Why is the INTO so quiet on this issue? It seems the Catholic Church has an irrational fear about changing the education system. It fears a loss of control, influence, members and money.
The Educate Together model is such a fair and inclusive system of education, where all children can learn together and specific faith formation is welcomed as an after- hours activity. Lay members of various churches are encouraged to participate and help the vicars, priests, nuns, rabbis, imams, etc. Think of the countless groups and organisations that thrive on volunteerism.
It would be my contention that a move to this type of system would ultimately benefit the churches, resulting in more active and inclusive organisations. Persisting with the present system can only lead to confrontation and antagonism, with further immense damage to the image of the Catholic Church, in particular. – Yours, etc,
TONY HENRY,
Cornafulla,
Co Roscommon.
Creating postal codes
Madam, – Another significant advantage of a fully numeric postal code, not mentioned by Michael J McCann (February 2nd), is that it would favour neither of the two official languages. – Yours, etc,
E QUILL,
Bray,
Co Wicklow.

Well I must be off

best wishes John

Owl

Owl 3 February 2010

I saw an owl, well I think it was an owl, its rather difficult to tell when you only see it from the rear looking up and can’t see the definitive flat face and great round eyes or tufted ears. I was jogging around the park when I spotted it, a woman jogger who also had spotted it, stopped me as asked me “Was that an owl?” Its a big bird, especially when it flies two feet above your head. And so silent as the night.
Off to the barbers I want to look my best for going to Ireland. Anne-Marie is getting married soon, and is enjoying the run up, except for table placings. Its the Exes that are the problem, some exes will talk to one another some won’t, some loath the sight of each other, and how to tell which is which? Both families are to be all mixed up together. An what about uncle George? Uncle George can’t sit next to anybody!
Home again and Jill of the book group turns up looking slightly sheepish, having forgotten her diary. The book group seems to have shrunk slightly, pity about the charming Indian lady, still never mind. She picks it up and the other things the other ladies have left and admires our South African rugs.
Then Sharland arrives with Jarvis who not finding any cats to pursue, they do like the exercise you know, persists on going behind the television which is in a corner, I examine it carefully but there is no dead mouse or anything that might be faintly interesting even to Jarvis. She brings us some home made jam and a book of poetry for Mary. Sharland is quite interested in the ad from the West Yorkshire Police who need interpretators she has German and Portuguese, but she will have to brush up on her underworld slang.
Snow, light fluffy beautiful snow, not lying just gaily fluttering about on the wind and landing eventually and melting on the ground. Surely even Leeds airport won’t close for this? I thought it was getting warmer, just shows how wrong you can be. I hope that it does not last, the threatened Air traffic controllers strike in Ireland is worrying enough. The cats come in quickly, after Jarvis has gone of course and they briefly take turns to swagger up and down each claiming that ’she’ chased him away. Fluff sleeps serenely through it all, she seems to be sleeping a lot these days, I must keep an eye on her perhaps she is just getting old, though she seems quite happy otherwise.
More Joyce Grenfell some rather good ones this time its like being transported back in time to a gentler, more stable more, gracious age. Ah the dead dear old days. We have Venison with salad, celery, olives, avocado, tomatoes and broccoli, quite delicious, Mary slaughters me at Scrabble.

Postcards

Coxwold Church, North Yorkshire England

Coxwold Church, North Yorkshire England 2

Lakeland peaks, Cumbria England

Multi-view Tirol, Austria

Siesta Koala, Australia

Obituary: Howard Zinn: author of A People’s History of the United States

One of the worst fates that can overtake a revolutionary is the indulgence of an adoring public. Howard Zinn, author of the bestselling A People’s History of the United States, was a pioneering socialist historian whose central thesis, that radical dissent leading to progressive government would ensure the greatest happiness for the greatest number, ended his life as an American national treasure.
Like the late Studs Terkel, lionised for his blue-collar histories of the Second World War and the Great Depression, Zinn was accorded widespread respect and affection. Even his academic opponents — and there were many — acknowledged that he had struck a chord in the life of the nation. Yet, by the time of his death, at 87, the US was as conservative as ever and, if possible, even more opposed to socialism.
In his 60-year career, as an airman, historian, teacher, prolific writer and activist, Zinn was involved in every pressing social and political issue of his time, including civil rights, the Vietnam War and, more recently, the invasion and occupation of Iraq. But even while storming the barricades he never lost sight of his central goal: persuading his fellow citizens that it was they, rather than their leaders, who were at the heart of the American story.
Just days before his death, in anticipation of the first anniversary of President Barack Obama’s arrival in the White House, Zinn told The Nation magazine of his fear that Obama, for all his rhetoric, would prove unequal to the challenge of creating a fairer, more equal society.
He had not been disappointed, he said, by the new President’s stance on foreign policy. Democrats in this sphere were hardly any different from Republicans. But so far as the home front was concerned, he had expected more.
On domestic policy Democratic presidents are traditionally more reformist, closer to the labour movement, more willing to pass legislation on behalf of ordinary people, and that has been true of Obama. But Democratic reforms have also been limited, cautious. On healthcare, for example, Obama started out with a compromise, and, Zinn said, when you start out with a compromise, you end with a compromise of a compromise.
He concluded: “I think people are dazzled by Obama’s rhetoric, and that people ought to begin to understand that he is going to be a mediocre president which means, in our time, a dangerous president unless there is some national movement to push him in a better direction.”
Zinn had said much the same of the Administrations of John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton, and even, in retrospect, of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal. Then, as now, it was a message most Democrats had no wish to hear. The small core of US
radicals, for whom Zinn remained a poster boy well into his eighties, hung on his every word, but the party machine, locked in an unequal struggle with the vagaries of the political process, was not listening.
Howard Zinn, the son of Jewish immigrants, was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1922. His father, Edward Zinn, was a waiter, later a storekeeper, who grew up in the last years of the Austro-Hungarian Empire; his mother, Jennie (née Rabinowitz), was from Irkutsk, then in the new Soviet Union. His childhood, which began in the 1920s boom, fuelled by sweatshops and the spread of mass production, was marked by the Wall Street crash and the onset of economic depression.
“We moved a lot, one step ahead of the landlord,” he would recall. “I lived in all of Brooklyn’s best slums.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article7012509.ece

Letters:

Guardian:

I am now exasperated beyond control re ebooks and iPads and the highfalutin rubbish talked about “real books” (Report, 2 February). Of course real print and pages and binding and all that is lovely to have and to hold in one’s shelves, but I am 75. I read, therefore I am. All my life I have lugged bags and suitcases of books from place to place – holidays, everywhere. I got a sprained wrist reading Wolf Hall and The Corrections and Stieg Larsson in bed. Then I got a Kindle for Christmas. It is light, it has a cute leather wallet sort-of cover which makes it easy to prop on armchairs or duvets etc. It fits into a handbag easily. I have at present got four books waiting to be read. I can get them in a split second, downloaded on to the gadget. Aeroplanes, trains, buses, my long, long night-time reading – all transformed by this wonderful, marvellous little thing. The iPad looks far too clunky to cuddle up in bed with anyway.
Mary Rose Romer
Padstow, Cornwall

Emphasis needs to be given to the important points raised by Philippe Marlière (Comment, 29 January) regarding French president Jacques Chirac’s crucial interview in the runup to the Iraq war. As the Financial Times bureau chief in Paris, I was well briefed on the Elysée’s position in advance of the Chirac interview which came to be used as the justification by London and Washington, as evidence that France would block any new UN resolution. Chirac made very clear he was not against a second resolution, but such a resolution was not appropriate at that moment – and if presented would be vetoed by France.
I filed a story to this effect, but by the time it reached London, the news agencies had already hardened this vital proviso into an outright rejection of any fresh UN resolution. Downing Street and the White House jumped on the agencies’ hard version as the proof they were looking for to say, in so many words: “France will never come on board, so we will have to go it alone.” Faced with these official statements, my copy was altered to express an outright French rejection. Thus it was not so much a case of blaming the French as saying: “Thank you, Jacques, you have given us the rationale we have been looking for to go ahead with our plans.” I think Chirac should have repeated better the French position, as it would have been much harder for Blair and Bush to go for regime change.
Robert Graham
Paris

It is amazing to think that the author of the “Climate of Fear” Reith Lectures, Wole Soyinka, could be the same person to stoke up such Islamophobic fear-mongering of his own (England is ‘cesspit of Islamists’, says Nigerian Nobel laureate, 2 February). Anyone who can say that “none of the other religions [except Islam] preach apocalyptic violence” either has never read the Book of Revelation in the New Testament, or chooses to ignore the 2,000 years of violence that lives to this day in the voices of rightwing Christian and Zionist apocalypticists.
Stefan Skrimshire
Research associate in religions and theology, University of Manchester
• Lionel Burman (Letters, January 30) guesses that Ed Balls and Peter Mandelson wouldn’t welcome the Guardian’s Romantic poets pamphlets for fear “they might find their way into schools”. But the Romantic poets are already there: my 16-year-old son is currently “doing”, and much enjoying, Keats and Coleridge for AS-level in his state comprehensive, and it can be hoped that he and his contemporaries up and down the land are in the first stages of metamorphosing into Mr Burman’s “generation of subversive and revolutionary young people”.
Bruce Ross-Smith
Oxford
• Does the verb “duck graft” (Karzai is told he cannot duck graft and stay credible, 27 January) mean that he used his expenses to have a floating birdhouse installed on his pond?
Dick Bentley
South Ferriby, North Lincolnshire
• I see the Royal Mail boss Adam Crozier is the new man at ITV (Report, 29 January). Will this mean that breakfast television will arrive at 3 o’clock in the afternoon and that no programmes will delivered on a Sunday?
Nick Matthews
Rugby, Warwickshire
• Can we end this cliche correspondence (Letters, 2 February)? Yes, we can.
George McLean
Manchester
•  Some years ago Sheffield Wednesday had a constructive midfield player called Gilles de Bilde, known affectionately to team-mates as Bob (Letters, 1 February).
Jack Parker

The BMA and others are right to initiate a debate on the involvement of the private sector in the NHS before the election (Letters, 2 February). As an NHS consultant for over 10 years, followed by three years in the US and four years as a consultant in the independent sector, I agree that the internal market has resulted in a “warped” sense of priorities and a major discontent among doctors. But competition has also brought a focus on improving quality of care and making healthcare more cost-efficient.
The problem is greed, just as in the banking crisis. If the independent sector companies have to account to their shareholders and look for profits then the greed factor cannot be avoided. So how can we remove greed while still keeping the advantages of competition? The solution is to convert all private healthcare providers into not-for-profit organisations, as was done in Sweden about five years ago. The profits that independent sector companies make will be ploughed back into the health economy, and these organisations will still have an incentive to get better and to provide competition to NHS hospitals and GP practices which still support the old culture of “we know best” for our patients.
Dr Dinesh Verma
Addenbrooke’s hospital, Cambridge

Considerable savings can be achieved in the public sector to reduce the deficit (Editorial, 2 February). But for those savings to be made in local government, certain constraints need to be addressed. First, successive spending reviews have imposed national-level efficiency targets on local authorities based on operational efficiencies. Rationalising, ­re-engineering and automating pro­cesses is critical to delivering greater service effectiveness while reducing costs in all areas, but targets must now be more compatible with councils’ local priorities. There is a need to recognise the expansion and increased complexity of council responsibilities, as well as ­taking full account of varying community needs across the country, which the recession has only magnified.
Second, whether it is reform of a single authority, or the streamlining of a “complex web” of multi-partner delivery, the process demands additional commercial and change-management skills within public-sector management, especially as organisations focus more on working with external partners to deliver non-core processes. Above all, change requires less control from the centre, with councils given far greater operational room to manoeuvre. The Total Place initiative is a welcome step in the right direction. But practical innovations such as lifting of ringfenced budgets and a reduction in centrally ­created demands – such as over 50 types of benefit – coupled with service delivery partnerships that combine risk transfer and service assurance, will be essential if the efficiencies are to be achieved, in the capital and beyond.
David Roots
Managing director, local government and regulated markets, Civica UK

I am a “cradle Catholic” who was sent to a monastic boarding school between the ages of nine and 17, and indoctrinated with the depressing fantasies of Catholic dogma. It took 20 years to shake off this miasma of lies; and although I never suffered sexual abuse, there is an abuse of a child’s rights inherent in Catholic teaching, which regards all sexual activity as sinful, except when in the cause of procreation. This (apart from being absurd in itself, and revealing of the Vatican’s terror of sexually active women) is a ­terrible burden to inflict upon adolescent boys. We were constantly reminded that masturbation was a “mortal sin”, punishable by hell.
I agree with Richard Dawkins that the sexual crimes perpetrated by Irish priests upon some boys, although horrendous, were probably less damaging overall than the brainwashing of all such children with medieval superstitions. The abusive priests were themselves the hapless products of a system which hated sex and imposed an unnatural celibacy. We should think hard before encouraging any such “faith” schools: to indoctrinate children with narrow, non-rational ideas is itself an abuse of their right to have access to a balanced world-view and to evidence-based thought.
And now the pope has attacked British equality legislation on the grounds that it threatens the freedom of religious crackpots to hate and persecute homosexuals and women (Your equality laws are unjust, pope tells UK before his visit, 2 February). I see no reason why we should let this bigoted despot come to Britain; but if we do, I hope there will be massive and noisy demonstrations against him and everything he represents.
Giles Swayne
Clare College, Cambridge
•  The pope and his advisers are incorrect when they argue that Britain’s new equality laws threaten religious freedom. A person of any faith or none may think what they wish about another person. What the law requires is that we all act in ways that treat our fellow human beings with equal respect, whatever we think of them. A person who is qualified to undertake a specific job, and is the best candidate according to objective and relevant criteria, should not be denied it because of other people’s prejudice or beliefs. People who perceive a contradiction between their religious beliefs and minority sexual or gender identity must put their prejudice aside when working with and providing goods and services to lesbian, gay or trans people. These are reasonable and just limitations on behaviour.
When anti-discrimination law was first introduced in the 1970s, many people argued they were about “thought police”. They were wrong then, just as the pope is wrong now. Equality and human rights law governs our actions, not our thoughts or beliefs. If a gay man, lesbian or trans person is the best qualified person for a particular job, they should be recruited. What their colleagues think about them is not relevant.
Linda Bellos
Chair, Institute of Equality and Diversity Practitioners
•  The pope might do well to study the life of his much-loved predecessor John XXIII. It was John who broke tradition and addressed his great message of world peace, Pacem in Terris, not just to his church but to “all men of good will”. Despite the contrary advice of his curia, who feared communist enemies, Pope John, as a pastor and bridge-builder, welcomed Khrushchev’s daughter and son-in-law, then editor of Izvestia, to the Vatican in the same year. Openness, humility and respect for others were his hallmarks. If Pope Benedict does not learn to walk more lightly and with greater respect for the consciences of others, his visit may well turn out to be an embarrassment to many members of his own church.
Bruce Kent
London
•  The pope’s language and attitude to equality is exactly comparable to the weaselly and sub-Christian language used by some bishops of the church over 200 years ago to justify slavery and to continue to suppress women ever since. The simple response to the pope is the elegant phrase “What would Jesus do?” Those who read the gospels will be in no doubt that he would side with those who are marginalised and oppressed.
Rev Paul Flowers
Bradford

Independent:

Lord Phillips (Opinion, 1 February) believes that non-Jewish critics of Israel are silent for fear of being labelled antisemitic. Whenever I hear such a comment, I ask the person who makes it to give me an example of when a critic of Israel has been incorrectly labelled as antisemitic (using the EUMC Definition of Antisemitism ). They never can give an example. Those who use this allegation are attempting to suppress the right of Jews who are on the receiving end of racism to speak out.
Lord Phillips’ assertion that Israel is in “cavalier breach of International Law, the UN Charter, its Conventions and Resolutions” is wrong. Surprisingly – especially for a lawyer – he does not state precisely what law it is that Israel has breached. Neither does he say what the purpose of the checkpoints is. It is to ensure there are no more suicide bombers of the kind that have killed hundreds of Israelis in recent years. Remember March 2002 when 22 were killed and 140 wounded at the Park Hotel in Netanya while celebrating Passover?
As for “criminally disproportionate” retribution? I’m surprised that a lawyer does not know that under the laws of war, “proportionality” does not mean “like for like”. In the Second World War, far more Germans were killed than British. It means using means which are not out of proportion to the aims.
Jonathan Hoffman
London N20
Your readers should hearken to Andrew Phillips’ sane and erudite article. For far too long we have tiptoed round the vexed issues he raises.
No, the state of Israel should not be allowed to hide behind the terrible events of the Shoah, dubbing all opposition to its appalling human rights record as antisemitic.
No, despite the propaganda doled out by its many spokesmen, Israel should not get away with its miserable justification for the slaughter of thousands of Palestinians in the recent Gaza invasion. No, it should not be allowed to defy dozens of UN resolutions against its abuse of Arabs over the past five decades. And, finally, powerful lobbying organisations should not be able to intimidate politicians and stifle debate over continued settlement building in Judea and Samaria. Even the President of the US runs scared of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee; hence his recent backtracking over settlements in East Jerusalem.
Israel is the emperor dancing naked through the streets. The media and most of our politicians seem only too eager to promote the myth that the rogue state is somehow clothed in the fine garments of democracy, fighting shoulder to shoulder against international terrorists, when the naked truth is that they are responsible for many acts of state terrorism.
Geoff Akers
Edinburgh
Papal visit to a secular society
The Pope has confirmed that he will make a state visit to our country, but doesn’t much like our equality legislation for gay men and women. Surely he must be familiar with the maxim “When in Rome…”.
Roy Askew
Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire
In normal circumstances, a dictatorial head of state who brooks no criticism, treats women as second-class citizens, regards homosexuality as an aberration, causes thousands of children every year to be born into grinding poverty by his opposition to contraception, and who has encouraged the spread of HIV by opposing condoms, would be regarded as a pariah. In the case of the Pope we are supposed to be grateful that he has deigned to grace this country with a state visit.
We should make it clear to the “holy” father that in a secular, liberal, European democracy his views are wholly unacceptable and that he is not welcome.
Ian Richards
Birmingham
Has not the Church throughout its history done what the Pope accuses our Equality Bill of doing, namely “imposing unjust limitations” on its faithful? Only when the Church fears its own freedom to act is being threatened, does it suddenly jump to a defence of freedom.
Those who are happy to live with the fantasy that “the truth… articulated by the Church’s Magisterium… sets us free” (Benedict XVI) must also live with the belief that a convict in prison is freer than he was on the outside.
Dr Michael B Johnson
Brighton
Any chance of the Government applying the Immigration Regulations 2006 correctly for once? They allow the exclusion from the UK of anyone who poses “a genuine, present and sufficiently serious threat affecting one of the fundamental interests of society”.
Jeremy Walker
London WC1
As a religious leader the Pope is entitled to express whatever is on his mind (just as we have the right to ignore it). But it’s an unwritten rule that heads of state don’t comment on the internal affairs of other states. The Pope claims to be a head of state.
Tim Hudson
Chichester, West Sussex
“People of faith” have every right to exert their influence using our democratic system, but they must not be allowed to invoke their beliefs to trump that system.
Patrick Smith
Beccles, Suffolk
Choosing to avoid a death in agony
I read Alison Davis’s letter with mixed feelings (1 February). I am pleased for her that she is still alive and enjoying life. I am not sure she has a terminal condition; so perhaps she doesn’t understand what it is like. I watched two relatives die in agony and over a long period. There was no hope for them, and they wanted to go as quickly and painlessly as possible.
I now find myself in a similar condition, and when my condition deteriorates I have no wish to hang on in pain. I would rather say my farewells in my own time to family and friends and be remembered as normally as possible, not screaming in agony. I was scarred by the deaths of my relatives and can only remember their suffering. I don’t want that for my family.
May I say that it is the person with the condition that should make the decision – no one else. And they should not be told what they can and can’t do.
S Scott
London N20
The German way of craftsmanship
Bruce Anderson (Comment, 25 January) thinks the Germans may be culturally more technically orientated than ourselves. Maybe, but they, like most other developed nations, have mandatory standards for all the main trades.
Several consequences flow from this. First, it incentivises the great mass of pupils who are not naturally academic and respond to some tangible reward for their efforts. This has a beneficial effect on classroom behaviour.
Second, it provides a clear career path towards relatively secure employment and, crucially, enhanced social status (the German master craftsman is a highly respected member of the community).
Third, it influences attitudes and encourages responsible lifestyles in a variety of ways, not all with obvious connections to trade. It may even be an answer to our binge-drinking culture, at least in part.
Finally, society generally benefits from a higher and more reliable standard of competence by tradesmen/women. If we adopted the German approach we might even cease to be the cowboy capital of the world.
Clive Tucker
Ayr
Pilkington deaths investigation
To clarify your article relating to the deaths of Fiona Pilkington and her daughter (“Business as usual in Barwell”, 30 January), the Independent Police Complaints Commission’s independent investigation into the actions of Leicestershire Police started during the inquest in September last year and is ongoing.
We have gathered a variety of material and liaised with the police force, local social services and Hinckley Borough Council, who have co-operated fully. We have carried out an extensive review of records of contact between the Pilkingtons and Leicestershire police over several years prior to their deaths, and are in the course of making further inquiries.
We have served advisory notices on a number of Leicestershire police officers, and this situation is being kept under review. Such notices are not judgemental in any way, but are required under police misconduct regulations, and served on officers to advise that their conduct is under investigation.
We are progressing this significant investigation as quickly and thoroughly as possible.
Amerdeep Somal
Commissioner, Independent Police Complaints Commission, London WC1
Cyberspace clash with HM Revenue
I can sympathise with Bob Knowles (letter, 1 February) in his attempts to sort out his tax on-line. Although I got my fairly simple calculation done, with help from my wife and an accountant friend and most of a weekend, when it came to paying what we calculated was owed I hit the brick firewall.
To pay HMRC any money, you have to remember your password from last year (it is not the kind of password, obviously, that you use apart from at the end of January and we are not supposed to write them down.) But somehow I managed to get through.
I have today been sent my “submission receipt reference number” which has 29 characters and three numbers. I calculate that, to the Chancellor, I am not one in a million but one in 1.082 times 10 to the power 44. That is a number twice as big as the number of stars in the known universe. Only the Revenue would need a number as complicated as that to differentiate me from anybody else on their books.
Colin Standfield
London W7
I sympathise with Mr Knowles’s online frustration. I used the DVLA online system to renew my road tax. It took my money but sent no disc. I phoned and they assured me one had been sent, but they’d send a duplicate. This also failed to arrive. Another phone call. “Sorry, only one duplicate allowed. And by the way, you’re now breaking the law for not displaying your tax disc.” So I had to be driven 40 miles to Leeds to get a renewal in person.
Allan Friswell
Cowling, North Yorkshire
While the failure of the Revenue’s online income tax form to accept standard keyboard characters (such as double quotation marks) is tedious, what’s more annoying is its grammatical blunderousness.
There are several instances of “none” followed by a plural verb, and at least one of “based on…” when what’s meant is “on the basis of…”. There’s even a “practice” for “practise” (the verb).
Michael Ayton
Durham
Briefly…
Star eclipsed
There was a noticeable omission in “100 Years of Movie Stars” last week. Henry Fonda, Oscar winner in 1981 and named 6th Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute, did not even get a mention.
John Mundy
Chislehurst, Kent
Outclassed
Pete Dorey assumes that small class sizes are better for pupils (letter, 2 February). I have primary school pictures from the 1950s showing classes of 40-plus being commonplace, and yet we all left primary school able to read, write and do basic maths without artificial aids. I suspect it is the control the teacher has over the class (including what and how they teach) that matters, rather than any particular class size.
Andrew Whyte
Shrewsbury
No armour needed
If I may be permitted to join in your heralded backlash (Pandora, 2 February), it is clear that the other-worldly Morgan Freeman has failed to grasp that, unlike American football players, rugby players are seriously hard athletes, not delicate wusses whose main talent is memorising dance routines. Hope that helps.
Kevin Smith
London SE22
Iran next
News that the US is moving ships and missiles into the Gulf comes as little surprise after the US Senate decided to pass a Bill containing broad sanctions punishing foreign companies that export gasoline to Iran or help expand its domestic refinery capabilities. These crippling sanctions represent a dramatic move away from Obama’s previous strategy of engagement with Tehran. The naval blockade required to enforce the sanctions – no doubt with RN help – could take us to the brink of war.
Stefan Simanowitz
Chair, Westminster Committee on Iran, London NW3
If only
I am impressed by the high standards set by The Independent. Reading (1 February) about how Joe Orton “wrote only three novels” and about Rip Torn “whose only Oscar nomination came in the 1983 film Cross Creek” I am unsure whether to reassess the extent of my own achievements or my future use of the word “only”.
Chris Millican
Rotherham, South Yorkshire

Times:

Sir, Proposed amendments to the Orphan Works Clause 42 (works with no known copyright owner) of the Digital Economy Bill will pose one of the greatest barriers to mass digitisation of content by the UK’s leading national institutions. We must seek to retain the Government’s draft clause to provide the UK with the world’s best solution to unlocking vast amounts of our collections for the nation.
One example of orphan works are the thousands of photographs of British servicemen during the First and Second World Wars held by the British Library. These photographs have enormous value to researchers but there is no way of tracing the rights owner — which in turn means the photographs cannot be digitised and made accessible. Other examples of orphan works held by libraries, archives, museums and galleries in this country include oral histories, personal letters, films and drawings.
The Digital Economy Bill proposes a system that allows a cultural or educational organisation to apply for a licence for the use of these works. We believe that such a flexible system is the right one given the types of works that fall into the category of orphan works.
Perhaps 40 per cent of some of our national institutions’ collections are orphan works. A significant proportion of these were never originally intended for commercial use and they should not be treated in the same way as commercially produced in-copyright orphan works.
Our aim is to give online access to cultural material for education and research purposes. Clause 42 should be supported as drafted by the Government.
Dame Lynne Brindley
Chief Executive, The British Library
Amanda Nevill
Director, British Film Institute
Chris Holland
The British and Irish Association of Law Librarians
Diane Lees
Director-General, Imperial War Museum
Dr Malcolm Read
Executive Secretary, Joint Information System Committee
Martyn Wade
National Librarian and Chief Executive, National Library of Scotland
Andrew Green
Librarian, National Library of Wales
Sandy Nairne
Director, National Portrait Gallery
Professor Douglas Kell
Research Councils UK
Sir Nicholas Serota
Director, Tate
Sarah E. Thomas
Director, Bodleian Library
Sir Mark Jones
Director, the Victoria and Albert Museum
Sir Mark Walport
Director, Wellcome Trust
Lorraine Estelle
Chief Executive, Joint Information System Committee Collections
Barbara Stratton
Secretary, Libraries and Archives Copyright Alliance
Dr Kevin Fewster
Director, National Maritime Museum
Nicola Dandridge
CEO, Universities UK
Bill Ferris
Chairman, Association of Independent Museums
Dr Michael Dixon
Director, The Natural History Museum
Elaine Fulton
Director, Scottish Library and Information Council/CILIP in Scotland
Toby Bainton
Secretary, Society of College, National and University Libraries

W Tovey wrote:
I would have to disagree with the idea behind this letter. While I am behind the first part of Clause 42 (Section 116A – Licensing of orphan works) which, as described in the letter, allows the Secretary of State to authorise a body to issues licences to orphan works, the second section takes this power a lot further. Section 116B – Extended licensing schemes, allows the Secretary of State to authorise a body to license “works in which copyright is not owned by the
body or a person on whose behalf the body acts”.

There are no real restrictions on what works this would cover (apart from an exemption for parliamentary and crown copyright) and while a copyright holder may withdraw their material (by giving notice in a manner not specified) there are no restrictions placed on how much of any royalties collected by the licensing body may be kept to cover ‘administrative costs’ – to give a rough figure, in 2007, the PRS kept 12% of their revenue (around £67m) as a ’small administration/commission fee’ -and so such a system could very well end up working to the detriment of the smaller artists. Such systems have come under heavy fire and the organisations involved have faced legal action in Belgium and Canada for not paying up.

Any ‘opt-out’ licensing scheme as general as this should be considered very carefully and not rushed through, bundled with much less dangerous legislation.
February 3, 2010 2:47 AM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Janet Denning wrote:
thought I’d sign in here just to see my name next to this list, it’s about the closest I’ll ever get to such an illustrious group.
And seeing as how the BL and V&A are 2 of my faves, I actually do support their clause cause.

Sir, In the 1950s and early 1960s my brother and I were regulars on the BOAC flights to Nigeria for school holidays. There were occasions when children would outnumber adults, although we were not on the “lollipop special” (letter, Feb 1) that only had two adults on the passenger manifest. What we saw and did brings back memories of an age of trust and innocence.
At Barcelona airport, overlooked by the stern-faced Guardia Civil, we would happily buy souvenir Toledo stilettos for letter openers (try that today); at Kano the arrival of an aircraft would be announced by a mounted Hausa blowing a long trumpet; and at Tripoli the Libyans would look at the swarm of British youngsters with some amazement. The cabin staff would even allow us to buy a quarter bottle of wine for 2/6d (12.5p) to accompany our silver service dinner.
Our first flight to Lagos took 26 hours with several stops and the last took eight hours non-stop in a Comet. I still have my BOAC Junior Jet Club logbook with some 25,000 miles logged and signed by the plane’s captain.
Ian Proud
London W5

Janet Denning wrote:
ah yes, the days of longhaul in a prop plane. When the sense of vibration and the engine noise in the ears lasted a good few days after landing.
February 2, 2010 11:20 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Thomas Hope wrote:
Ian, two major changes, these days:

Whether you are a child, or a nun, or a 75 year old pensioner, by equality rules you are just as much a potential bomber as everyone else.

With 25,000 miles recorded, you might think you could get a free internal flight to London, but on top of your miles you would have to pay over £80 cash in taxes and charges.

At least the journey times are now normally shorter – but not always.

Sir, The Pope opposes UK government legislation on human rights because, in his view, it breaches natural law (report, Feb 2). He is also opposed to the distribution of condoms in Southern Saharan Africa, to help to prevent the spread of Aids, and the attempts by the Brazilian Government to encourage responsible birth control, to do something about unwanted children on the streets, for the same reason.
So-called laws have never been anything but philosophically thinly disguised attempts at social control. Many Christians have long recognised this. Secularists do not have a monopoly of modern moral virtue.
The Rev Professor R. John Elford
The Rev Professor S. Robinson
Leeds Metropolitan University
Sir, Ruth Gledhill (Commentary, Feb 2) considers that the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England are out of touch with the public mood. Let’s not forget it was the public mood that resulted in the crucifixion of Jesus.
Opinion is not the same as truth.
Calvert Markham
Cheam, Surrey

iain rae wrote:
Is it natural to believe in the supernatural? Is it natural to be a celibate priest?
February 2, 2010 10:00 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Fenella Boseman wrote:
“Let us also not forget that without the crucifixion there is no christianity”

Well, the Koran says Jesus wasn’t divine, wasn’t crucified, wasn’t resurrected and won’t be coming back.

So which version of “the truth’ to believe – Koran or Bible?
February 2, 2010 9:54 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Norman Paterson wrote:
The crucifixion is a stumbling block for absolute morality. Was it a good thing or a bad thing? If morality is absolute we can’t say it was good for us but bad for Jesus.
February 2, 2010 9:45 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Laurence Skermer wrote:
Let us also not forget that without the crucifixion there is no christianity. So for whom were the mob working? Some closed religious minds are truly astonishing and Mr Markham appears to have one of the finest exapmples yet.
February 2, 2010 7:47 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Peter Cressall wrote:
What happiness, to be certain that one unquestionably possesses the truth! I gather that Calvert Markham mistrusts democracy and favours absolutism, always providing (of course) that it is of his persuasion.

Sir, The translation of Jean-Luc Rabanel’s French parsnip recipe (report, Jan 30) has mistakenly translated “bay” as “laurel”.
Laurel leaves are poisonous and any reader who follows the recipe risks serious illness.
Ann Finlay
Nottingham

Janet Denning wrote:
parsnips aren’t regularly found in French supermarkets but when they are, soup is probably the best option. Otherwise cooked they’re so woody you risk splinters in the tongue. Or maybe it’s just Carrefour who sell lousy parsnips.
February 2, 2010 11:48 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Peter Cressall wrote:
I have always suspected that French food was poisonous…

Sir, I have just been to the post office to begin the process of renewing my Freedom Pass for free public transport travel in London. While I recognise the need to make the passes more fraud-proof, I cannot understand why we have had to go to the post office. The queues for renewal and for the post office’s other services wound their way out of the main doors. Those renewing passes are either over 60 or disabled. And there are only two seats at my post office, which no one uses because if you do you might lose your place in the queue.
Post office counter services are, locally, notorious for being hugely inefficient. Why would anyone who has ever used the post office choose to subject the over-60s and the disabled to a long wait in a queue in the cold of a February morning?
Anne Reyersbach
London SW11

Janet Denning wrote:
I notice longer queues are happening everywhere now, not just post offices. Cut down on staff, cut down on overheads, spend the customer’s time and make him wait. And you’re right Anne, no seats.
February 3, 2010 12:02 AM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Peter Cressall wrote:
Sinna Mani: The answer is no. Their job was not to run the Post Office at a loss. The alternative of charging you what the service cost was apparently not an option.
February 3, 2010 12:00 AM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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sinna mani wrote:
I am head of a small firm. I can not afford to send staff to the local` post office for it takes too long. Sending a recorded delivery letter can take sometime more than an hour. Did the people reponsible for closing sub-post offices take into account the cost to small businesses of their actions?
February 2, 2010 9:55 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Charles Bockett-Pugh wrote:
We used to have long queues, and then the idiots closed one of our Post Offices so now we walk further and stand in longer queues.
The whole process is hugely inefficient, when it takes 5 minutes to get 3 parcels weighed and stamped for a total profit of about 50p.
Hopeless management!
February 2, 2010 9:30 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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tony roberts wrote:
Reminds me of a satirical song by, I think, Jeremy Taylor.

The chorus went
“Job’s worth it’s more than my job’s worth
I don’t care if you’ve been waiting for hours in the queue
And if you don’t like it, you know what you can do.”
Good stuff!

Sir, Further to the report (Jan 29) and letter (Jan 30) regarding a dress code for shopping, I have for some years complained at various supermarkets about children sitting inside the shopping trolley wearing outdoor shoes. It is most unhygienic. Packaged food goes straight into the fridge.
Each time the response has been that staff lay themselves open to verbal abuse, if not worse, if they confront the offenders.
Which is more dangerous to health: pyjamas or shoes?
Jean E. Grown
Montgomery, Powys

Peter Cressall wrote:
This sort of thing is just another example of a lack of consideration for others.
February 3, 2010 12:02 AM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Bob Bates wrote:
Bit o’ dirt never hurt anyone.
February 2, 2010 11:18 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Charles Bockett-Pugh wrote:
No problem! Just don’t eat the packaging.
February 2, 2010 9:31 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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pete M wrote:
Repack your food into resealable plastic bags on arriving back home. Also frees up space in the freezer compartment.
February 2, 2010 8:52 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Peter Cressall wrote:
If the application of common sense is to be suspended due to fear of verbal abuse, things are much worse than I had supposed.

Telegraph:

SIR – As an Anglican, I find myself asking why it always seems to be a senior Roman Catholic (report, February 2) who verbalises our Christian concerns about the intrusion of MPs into our faith.
Members of our congregations ask very difficult questions about the Church of England’s standpoint, so it is vital for us to hear from our leaders. The thunderous silence from Lambeth Palace is becoming worrying.

Surely our senior prelates should exercise the courage of their faith and make a united stand in the face of such opposition to the Church’s teachings. No one in Parliament will listen until they do.
Rev Brian Swabey
Coverack, Cornwall
SIR – Your leading article (February 2) rightly stresses the importance of the Pope’s words to the English bishops about what the Government is doing in Britain.
The Pope’s message is a rebuke to the bishops. He says: “I urge you as Pastors to ensure that the Church’s moral teaching be always presented in its entirety and convincingly defended.” This suggests that the teaching is not convincingly being defended.
This Government is attacking Christians on many fronts, especially through the Equality Bill and the Education Bill, which will force politically determined sex education on all maintained schools. It is the Church of England bishops who have magnificently resisted these proposals. The Catholic bishops have offered only a few quiet words backstage about the Equality Bill and have actually given support to the proposal to make sex education compulsory.
Eric Hester
Bolton, Lancashire
SIR – I am dazzled that the Pope has yet again attacked God’s gay children, and dazzled the more that his backward and theologically illiterate views are regarded as newsworthy. Pope Benedict and Pope John Paul II have presided over the gradual decline of Catholic Europe for more than 30 years. They believe liberals to be the problem. I say: “Physician, heal thyself.”
Rev Richard Haggis
Oxford
SIR – The Pope has every right to express his opinion, and I happen to agree with him. But, as our Articles of Religion point out: “The Bishop of Rome hath no jurisdiction in this realm of England.”
Martin Woodhead
Holmfirth, West Yorkshire
SIR – What a dilemma! We can’t break with Rome – we’ve already done that – and the Queen is unlikely to ask: “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?”
I suppose, as true Brits, we must just grin and bear it (while secretly agreeing with the Pope).
Brian Foster
Shrivenham, Oxfordshire
Better approach to piracy
SIR – When the British Empire was at its peak in 1867, my Irish great-grandfather was in the British Indian Army, under General Sir Robert Napier of the Royal Engineers (later Field Marshal Lord Napier of Magdala). The Army was despatched to Abyssinia on an expedition to free some British subjects summarily imprisoned there by King Theodore II of Magdala, whom they defeated.
For this, some 12,000 troops, together with hundreds of mules, camels, carts and 3,000 porters, and 205 sailing vessels and 75 steam ships, mainly from Bombay (Mumbai), were involved.
Compare this with the present efforts to rescue two unfortunate British citizens kidnapped by Somali pirates, while innocently sailing the high seas nearby.
Alfred Gabb
Overton, York
Jesus wasn’t white
SIR – The Wintershall Charitable Company is looking for a white actor to play Jesus (Mandrake, January 27) because the producer asserts that “Jesus was white”. A police description of Jesus in today’s language would certainly be of “a man with a Middle-Eastern appearance”. There are hundreds of thousands of Oriental Jews from North Africa, Yemen, Egypt, Syria, Iran and even India who would answer to this description.
In my experience, Jewish people resemble other people in their country. Race and colour are not fixed. Historically, Jesus was a Semite of Middle-Eastern origin. Bonnie Greer is right to say that he would have looked Palestinian.
Jesus is, however, someone who transcends culture, race and time, and that is why he has been portrayed by people of every culture and race.
The Wintershall Theatre Company should keep in mind both his Middle-Eastern origins and his universal significance.
Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali
Orpington, Kent
Written diagnoses
SIR – I agree with Andrew Papworth (Letters, February 1) that it would be helpful for many people to receive something in writing when consulting a medical professional about a non-trivial condition, provided that it is couched in layman’s terms.
After my annual care review last year, I was informed that I have a 35 per cent risk of a cardiovascular disease over the next 10 years. I assume that the risk calculation is statistically based, but there is no explanation as to whether that percentage is normal, or whether it is an above-average risk.
To many people, the mere quotation of such a statistic would engender the fear of an imminent cardiovascular incident. Perhaps ignorance is bliss after all?
G. W. Baker
Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland
Time for a perfect egg
SIR – Jack Richards (Letters, February 2) is to be congratulated on his erudite and beautifully crafted presentation of the requirements for boiling a perfect egg.
However, having studied and attempted to conform with his 12 factors for achieving this goal, with the aid of thermometer, barometer, hydrometer, tape measure, scales and Google Earth, time ran out, and today’s breakfast menu had to be changed to Marmite on toast.
John V. Sanders
Stourbridge, West Midlands
Secret of Constable view
SIR – Philip Duly and Catherine Pearson (Letters, January 30 and February 2) describe their searches for the location of John Constable’s painting The Cornfield.
The answer they are seeking is to be found in Constable and His Country (1976), by Professor Alastair Smart of the University of Nottingham and Attfield Brooks, my late father.
They state that the painter’s son, Captain Charles Constable, identified the site of the painting in a letter published in the Art Journal in 1869, in which he wrote:
“The little church in the distance never existed, it is one of the rare instances where my father availed himself of the painter’s licence to improve the composition. Dedham Church has a much larger tower and lies to the right hand outside the limits of the picture. The scene is greatly changed now [1869]; all the trees on the left were cut down some years ago.”
The site is on the lane from East Bergholt to Fen Bridge over the river Stour, shown in the picture The Stour Valley and Dedham Village (report, January 26), which prompted Mr Duly’s letter.
This lane was the route which the young John Constable used on his daily walk from his home in East Bergholt, to and from Dedham Grammar School – perhaps he even used to drink from the pool as shown in the painting.
In the oil sketch of 1825 or 1826 for The Cornfield, no church is shown, and if the church added for the final painting is based on an actual local church, it is possible that it was inspired by the nearby Higham Church.
John A. Brooks
Olney, Buckinghamshire
Stick ’em up
SIR – I note that Lord Mandelson likens David Cameron and George Osborne to Laurel and Hardy.
May I suggest that Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling equate to a latter-day Bonnie and Clyde?
Laurence Davies
Ramsgate, Kent
Fat children whose parents should learn to cook
SIR – Christopher Hope reports (February 1) that parents are to blame for childhood obesity by overfeeding young children. Sadly, my cooking experiences in Scottish primary schools during their “health weeks” confirms that children are becoming fatter. Initially, I would occasionally need to lend an overweight child, too large for a child’s apron, my own, but it now happens so frequently that I take a good supply of adult aprons.
In Scotland, schools promote energetic activity with active school coordinators, but teaching children to cook is more difficult and more expensive. The EarlyBird research, which you report, suggests the need to educate parents.
Some innovative head teachers have taken it upon themselves to organise family cookery sessions in school time. However, this takes considerable time and resources. There are fears that the EarlyBird project, due for completion in 2013, will be halted this September due to lack of funds.
Food can and should be tasty, inexpensive and a means for families to come together. Surely now is the time for primary education about nutrition and simple, practical food skills to be funded properly.
Fiona Bird
Airlie, Angus
SIR – The study blaming fat parents for childhood obesity would come as no surprise to veterinary surgeons.
Over my years in practice, it was notable that while fat dogs do not always have fat owners, fat owners inevitably rear fat dogs.
Audrey Shearn
Tankersley, South Yorkshire

Irish Times:

Cut in price of prescribed drugs
A chara, – It was heart-warming to see the Irish Pharmaceutical Healthcare Association’s announcement of a reduction in the price of more than 300 recognised branded medications – representing a saving of almost €100 million over a year.
It was especially heartening to read IPHA’s director of commercial affairs, Brian Murphy, state that the association’s members, in recognising the difficult position of the Irish economy and the tough decisions facing the Irish Government, were willing to play their part in helping to reduce costs and prices.
The people of Ireland will be forever grateful that they no longer have to pay over the odds for drugs that are for the most part long past their copyright.
Might I venture that the IPHA could also help the overburdened Irish taxpayer and the cash- strapped HSE and save them several hundred millions of euros by sourcing their medical supplies in Spain, where they only cost a fraction of what they do here. The end of the (unintentional I am sure) gouging of the Irish public and the provision of medicines at prices comparable to our fellow EU citizens will be widely welcomed. When this happens I will be the first to congratulate the IPHA for doing its bit for Ireland. – Is mise,
PADRAIG Mc HUGH,
Davis Place,
Dublin 8.
Madam, – Please allow me express my cynicism at the announcement by the HSE of a 40 per cent cut in prescribed medicines.
I take three tablets daily: Lipitor 20mg, Nebilet 5mg and Asprin 75mg. A month’s supply in the Republic costs €85, in Northern Ireland €55, and in France €45, and none of these drugs are on the list published by the IPHA. At a saving of €40 per month I am better off by €480 per annum. What savings could be achieved for each of us, the taxpayers of Ireland, if our HSE negotiators really tried? – Yours, etc,
THOMAS Mc CULLOUGH,
Gormanston,
Co Meath.
Pay cuts and mortgage unworkable
Madam, – I am a public servant. As a result of the December 2009 budget a cut of €3,200 has been applied to my annual pay. This is in addition to the pension levy cut that was applied to my pay in March 2009, which resulted in a €2,200 reduction to my net pay.
I am a low- to middle-ranking civil servant and I cannot afford these cuts to my remuneration.
I took out a mortgage on an apartment in Dublin in 2006 at a cost of €375,000, and it is largely unworkable to afford a mortgage of this level while sustaining pay cuts of this magnitude.
It is unfair, unjust and irresponsible to destroy my quality of life in two fell swoops of pay reductions in 10 months. I have worked tirelessly in the public service for the past eight years and I entered the public service on the back of a third-level qualification when other avenues were open to me because I wanted to pursue a meaningful career in the public interest.
This Government targeting of public sector pay has not only turned my quality of life on its head, it has demoralised thousands of honourable and dedicated public servants as a significant proportion of us teeter on the brink of perpetual indebtedness. – Yours, etc,
BARRY FULHAM,
Royal Canal Park,
Dublin 15.
Church’s role in primary schools
Madam, – Yet again those who prefer a secular education are trying to force their preferences on others. I chose a Church of Ireland education for my children, but I wouldn’t dream of telling those of other faiths or none that they must do the same. I object strongly to being told by those who do not choose a faith-based education, that no one should make a different choice from them.
Where I live there is a choice of several primary schools, Catholic, Protestant, Gaelscoileanna and Educate Together. Surely choice is a good thing? I realise that all areas may not have the same variety of choice, but why not seek to increase choice in those areas, rather than denying it to others?
This debate reminds me of the recent debate over the Angelus. Just because some don’t like it, they think no one should be allowed to listen to it! Freedom and choice are precious. When making your own choice, don’t seek to deny others the right to make a different one. – Yours, etc,
CAROLINE MOLLOY,
Swords,
Co Dublin.
Madam, – In my letter (January 28th), I wrote, “the Ryan and Murphy reports are being presented, mistakenly, as standing in judgment on the behaviour of every Catholic and particularly of priests and religious.”James Scully-Lane’s letter (February 1st), illustrates this claim perfectly.
He writes that he would be happy to retain the services of people on school boards as long as the schools were not under “the aegis of an organisation [the Catholic Church] which has actively facilitated the molestation of generations of children” (my italics).
The Murphy commission found that, “clerical child sexual abuse was covered up by the Archdiocese of Dublin and other church authorities over much of the period covered by the commission’s remit.”(1.113). This is truly shocking, but there is a world of a difference between “covering up” these crimes and “actively facilitating” them.
In recent years the Catholic Church has put an enormous amount of time, energy and money into devising child protection policies and putting structures in place to protect children in schools and parishes. This is seldom mentioned. I wonder why? – Yours,etc,
Fr SEÁN McDONAGH,
Dalgan Park,
Navan,
Co Meath.
Madam, – Fintan O’Toole’s article  advocating that a derogation be given to agnostics in primary schools from teaching religion is badly thought out (Opinion, February 2nd).
It is absurd to argue that the personal whims or prejudices or belief systems of the primary school teacher should determine the curriculum they teach.
Atheism is as much a belief system as any faith, and agnosticism is as much an epistemological stance as any other.
Why should the fact that the pupil happens  to be taught by a teacher with either of these outlooks retard their faith formation? Would the suggestion be treated seriously if it was made about, for example, history?  What if a Holocaust denier (with the whole attendant conspiratorial historical outlook) wanted a derogation from teaching history?    – Yours, etc,
COLM FITZPATRICK,
Castleknock Vale,
Laurel Lodge,
Castleknock,
Dublin 15.
Madam, – An obvious omission has emerged in much of the correspondence concerning the role of the churches in education – that is parental choice. The emphasis of Article 42 of the Constitution is not of any particular type of patronage, but rather of parents being best placed to make educational choices for their children, and the role of the State in supporting those choices insofar as possible.
There is no doubt that the State has failed in supporting that choice. This is evident from the recent poll carried out by your newspaper. However, assuming the accuracy of your poll, there remains a sizeable number of citizens who desire that their children should attend a school with a religious ethos. It would therefore seem obvious that the best way of upholding the values of our Constitution is for the State to engage with the various actors in our education system to ensure that choice is now offered. This seems the path the Government is now tentatively stepping towards.
Zero-sum arguments on both sides – either in support of the maintenance of an inequitable status quo, or in support of a system which goes in the reverse and replaces one marginalised section of our society with another are neither helpful nor desirable.
It is interesting to note that many of the successful western democracies which we are often told we should be emulating, such as Canada, the Netherlands and Australia provide public funding to schools of both religious and secular ethos.   There is space in our society for choice. –   Yours, etc,
IAN PAYNE,
Glenavy Park,
Terenure,
Dublin 6W.
Exceeding the 30km/h limit
Madam, – I wonder if anyone has thought out the consequences of the extended 30km/h limit in Dublin city. Very few vehicles can operate at that speed efficiently. Most cars, buses and lorries will have to use a lower gear in an effort to maintain that speed. This means higher engine rpm which in turn means more noise, higher fuel consumption and rocketing exhaust emissions. Hardly a green solution. Is this the only way to reduce accidents? I think not. Perhaps this is just a cunning way to harvest more speeding fines into Government coffers? – Yours, etc,
RAY Di MASCIO,
Dublin Road,
Celbridge, Co Kildare.
Madam, – I am a driver for many years and am a supporter of the newly extended 30km/h speed limit in Dublin city centre. How absurd some of the begrudgers sound, asking if bicycles and even mobility scooters will be bound by the new speed limit (February 2nd). It is motorised vehicles that are regulated, not because our society is being unfair to them, but because cars are dangerous to those on the street and therefore require extra responsibility on the part of the driver.
If I am hit by a bike at 30km/h, I can be hurt, but a lot less than if I were hit by a car at the same speed. It’s time for these people to grow up – the affected roads are crowded and nobody should have been doing over 30km/h in these areas prior to the ban anyway. – Yours, etc,
TOMMY TIGHE,
Grove Park, Dublin 6.
Lanes for bikes and boats
Madam, – €10 million for cycle lanes in Dublin (Home News, February 2nd). Perhaps the people of Cork could be granted €10 million for boat lanes for their arks! – Yours, etc,
ANN FITZGERALD,
Upper Oakpark Road,
Tralee, Co Kerry.
Creating postal codes
Madam, – Perhaps it’s too easy a solution but instead of post codes and the inevitable massive expense in creating them, why not use each property’s unique satnav co-ordinates? This could be done quickly, easily and cheaply with the added bonus of relief postmen and women not needing to be shown a route as they could let the satnav do the directing – especially useful in the rural parts of the country. – Yours, etc,
NOEL BILLINGTON,
Louisburgh, Co Mayo.
State’s response to abortion
Madam, – Daragh McDowell applauds Human Rights Watch for taking the Irish people to task because of their opposition to abortion (January 30th). I do not agree that any “kudos” is due. Leaving aside the extraordinary arrogance in assuming the right to scold a sovereign nation, it is ridiculous that any discussion of human rights would choose not only to exclude unborn children, but to deliberately target them for destruction.
As a young Irish women, I take grave exception to the claim by Human Rights Watch that I need abortion to “enjoy” my human rights. Abortion neither serves mother nor baby, and it is time ideology-addled abortion supporters were honest about the nature of this procedure.
The Human Rights Watch report made some extraordinary illiberal recommendations in order to promote abortion. It suggested that the right to conscientious objection should be diminished, compelling doctors and other medical practitioners to partake in arranging or providing an abortion.
Moreover, it urged the Government to increase public support for abortion by influencing public discourse. It should also be noted that no pro-life doctors, campaigners or citizens were approached for interview while compiling this short-sighted, partial and hectoring report. – Yours, etc,
KATIE ROBINSON,
Youth Defence,
Capel Street, Dublin 1.
Number’s up
Madam, – As I write, the date is 01022010. Is this a calendrome? – Yours, etc,
JOHN DAVENPORT,
Briar Wood,
Bray, Co Wicklow.
Bail for convicted killer
Madam, – Advic would like to express our revulsion at the release on bail of convicted killer Eamonn Lillis pending sentence (Front page, January 30th). We believe it shows once more the biased approach of the Irish criminal justice system when it comes to not just victims and their families but society in general.
Mr Lillis has had over a year to “tidy up his affairs” and so it is a travesty to state that he would need an hour, let alone a week to organise his financial and other related matters. The message that such judicial understanding and leniency sends out to the general public is that there is one law for the offender, another for the victim.
Advic is calling for the Government to bring legislation before the Oireachtas without delay to ensure those accused of homicide are barred from applying for bail pending trial. There have been too many examples of killers and violent offenders re-offending while on bail to delay this. Furthermore, post conviction, it goes against the core of established legal notions of fairness and natural justice to afford those convicted of our most serious crimes the luxury of freedom notwithstanding their guilt before a judge and jury.
We call for fairness and justice for offenders, victims and their families. It is now well past time that the scales of justice were recalibrated in Ireland. – Yours, etc,
ANNIE MULVANEY,
Joint Secretary,
Advic (Advocates for Victims of Homicide),
PO Box 10106,
Swords, Co Dublin.
Flood defence plans
Madam, – Arising out of the November 2009 flooding which inundated Cork city and environs, a recent estimate for Cork flood defence costs is circa €100 million.
What appears to have been overlooked by the powers that be at national and local level is that Ireland has already signed up to the EU Water Framework Directive 2006 and the Assessment and Management of Flood Risks Directive 2007.
Both these directives spell out the responsibilities of EU member states in respect of good river basin management practices, and in particular, ensuring adequate flood defence systems are developed and put in place.
The directives caution on any development on riparian flood plains.
All of this has fallen on deaf ears in the Department of the Environment, and Cork city and county councils – the latter’s own headquarters is located on the River Lee flood plain.
Expenditure on flood defences is cost effective in the long-term, and goes some way towards mitigating the extremes of severe flooding. The OPW has published a national assessment of riparian land zones at risk from flooding.
Given that the November 2009 flooding in Cork was “man made” and largely down to the ineptitude of the ESB regarding its management of the Lee hydroelectric dam (whose purpose apart from power generation, is to control water flows in the downstream reaches of the River Lee).
The cost for Cork’s flood defences should be borne in part by the ESB, given that it was responsible for the subsequent disastrous flood events which caused hardship to many householders, including myself. – Yours, etc,
PATRICK L O’BRIEN,
MSc (NUI) CEnv (UK)
FCIWEM (UK) MIChemE (UK)
MCIWM (UK) ,
Victoria Cross,
Cork.
Killing embryos in stem-cell research
Madam, – In response to Dr Dolores Dooley’s dismissal of adult and induced pluripotent stem-cell (IPSC) research as good and ethical alternatives to human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research (January 28th), a search of the world’s largest registry for clinical trials (www.clinicaltrials.gov) shows more than 1,900 current adult stem cell versus three hESC transplantation trials respectively.
Dr Dooley’s argument that hESCs are required as controls for adult stem-cell research is incorrect, since adult stem-cell research has been in progress for decades without hESCs. Dr Dooley’s argument that hESCs are required as controls for IPSC research is purely relative since human IPSC research (which has emanated from equivalent research in mice) will advance rapidly irrespective of the existence of hESCs. The justification that “all forms of stem-cell research need to continue and all are important” is only academic, and academic endeavour in my view, should never undermine the dignity of human life. – Yours, etc,
Prof TOMMIE McCARTHY,
Department of Biochemistry,
University College Cork.
Ex-taoiseach’s 3D vision
A chara, – I wish to protest at the photograph (Front page, February 1st) of former taoiseach Bertie Ahern TD. I am sick to my teeth looking at the person who has caused to much hardship to so many thousands of our people.Shame on you. – Is mise,
PAUL DORAN,
Monastery Walk,
Clondalkin, Dublin 22.
Madam, – Free advertising for a multinational television company, a pub in Dublin, and a politician who had to resign under several clouds. Why? – Yours, etc,
SARAH CUNNINGHAM,
Lower Churchtown Road,
Dublin 14.
Madam, – What a pity Bertie Ahern wasn’t wearing those 3D glasses when his government oversaw our country’s finances! – Yours, etc,
STEPHEN McGOVERN,
Westminster Park,
Foxrock, Dublin 18.
Helping the people of Haiti
Madam, – Suffering has visited Haiti once again. It is an unwelcome visitor that the people there have met only too often. The Haitians deserve every assistance that they receive. With this in mind, I would like to compliment your Washington Correspondent, Lara Marlowe, on her responsible reporting.
It brings home to readers the sheer scale of the catastrophe and yet touches on the personal tragedy inflicted on the individual inhabitant. I would consider her articles, and in particular that of January 28th, with its accompanying photo, to be of the higher order of journalism. It helps return that profession to its rightful noble place. – Yours, etc,
JAMES CREANE,
Furry Park Road,
Clontarf, Dublin 5.
Head shops and pubs
Madam, – I am amazed at the recent upsurge of concern regarding the growth of so-called head shops. We have had thousands of like establishment in operation for years. The only difference is that we choose to call them pubs. – Yours, etc,
DONAL KING,
Rowan Park Avenue,
Blackrock, Co Dublin.

Well I must be off

best wishes John

Book group

Book group 2 February 2010

Cold, so cold but getting lighter as I trot around the park, no other Monday morning joggers, nor dog walkers I spot a credit card lying on the ground and pause to pick it up, it is a bus pass for the month of January, how quickly that month has flown, abandoned by some careless child, with a feeling of great virtue I go and put it in the bin.
Its Mary’s book group today and they are reading Larkin, so I do a final tidy up the place looks spick and span, even though I say it myself who shouldn’t. The Leeds City council men come and pick up my ten very large bags of leaves. Yes they are heavy, but there is no need for them to glare at us while they are doing it. One bag bursts, I knew I should have put another one around it, it showers leaves over the man, the drive, the pavement and the road, with a final glare they depart.
Off to the bank with all my spare change, £91 its very heavy, I put it in a shoulder bag, and attempt to carry it as if it weighed nothing. Don’t want people to know I am taking money to the bank, I might get mugged, though any mugger would have to be fairly fit to run off with this lot, the weaker mugger would probably rupture himself. The young lady at the bank is not pleased, she glares at my neatly bagged piles of coins, and goes and weighs them, and totals them up on her calculator, finally she looks at me in despair, and asks me how much there was? I tell her £91! I guess the modern bank cashier does not have very much to do with old fashioned coinage. I ask if they take old fashioned 50p pieces, she shakes her head.
I pick up the laundry, and some shopping and home. Time flies by and soon it is time for Mary’s book group to arrive.
I brew some coffee for them, and some Belgian chocolate biscuits, milk, dark and white chocolate, I manage to make with the biscuits an intricate geometric design on the plate. Milk and sugar and they are here, Mary lets them in, and I depart to fix Sharland’s computer no Philip Larkin for me.
Sharlands computer which worked perfectly well the last time I looked at it is irritatingly stubborn, not a twitch not a flicker nothing, dead as mutton, though why port or beef should be any less dead is beyond me. A whole hour and a quarter I struggle accompanied by gales of feminine laughter from below, what could they have found so funny in Larkin?
I go down in defeat, its the tip or a new motherboard for that computer. The cats all reacted in their various ways to the visitors, Puddy fled, Fluff slept through it all and Kitten went to greet them.
Mushroom, pine nuts chopped onion, and rice, very nice we watch Joyce Grenfell, a bit of repetition funny how somethings are better in audio only, the pictures are clearer. An at long last I peat Mary at Scrabble, hurrah!

Postcards

Bertie the Bus and Thomas the Tank Engine

Betws-y-Coed, Swallow Falls, Gwynedd, Wales

Elstow Abbey, Bedford, Bedfordshire, England

Mosaic sand and sea shells

Owl Chicks London Zoo. I love the eager look of anticipation Lunch is here and you are it!

Obituary: Gloria Nord: ice-skating performer

Gloria Nord was an American ice- skating beauty who captivated British audiences in the 1950s when she starred in ice-show extravaganzas staged by the impresario Tom Arnold.
Born Gloria Nordskog in 1922, she was originally a rollerskating star, adept at the foxtrot and the tango, with the US touring show Skating Vanities, which was created by the US impresario Harold Steinman, the originator of the Dancing Waters concept. Skating Vanities, with Nord in the cast, appeared four times in London, at Wembley Empire Pool and at Haringey Arena, in the 1940s. It was later bought out by the US showman Morris Chalfen, who took it off the boards and on to ice skates to create the worldwide hit extravaganza Holiday on Ice.
In Hollywood Nord had a role in Pin Up Girl, which starred Betty Grable, and she was credited with teaching Cary Grant to ice-skate. During the war she was a pin-up girl much appreciated by GIs. After her appearances in Skating Vanities and transferring her talents to ice skating, she became very popular with British ice show fans, though she was renowned more for her platinum-blonde beauty and Hollywood-style magnetism on the ice than for her skating ability, which was eclipsed by the vastly more talented Sonja Henie. But she had star quality, and it was recognised by Sir Arthur Elvin, the owner of the Empire Pool, Wembley, who put her in several hugely popular shows.
In the early 1950s her credits included lead roles at Wembley in Chu Chin Chow on Ice (1952), Humpty Dumpty on Ice (1953-54), The Dancing Years on Ice (an adaptation of an Ivor Novello musical) in 1954, and Cinderella on Ice (1956-57). She was also featured in the Royal Command Performance of 1953 at the London Coliseum, appearing before the Queen. She also appeared in ice circuses at the sports stadium in Brighton. In 1952 she was the featured star, supported by the successful Italian musical clowns the Rastellis.
In 1956 she headed a bill that included the clowns Pauli and Roland; a double trapeze act; and Armand Guerre’s sea lions.
After the Brighton season in 1958 Nord retired and returned to the US. Her two marriages ended in divorce.
Gloria Nord, ice-skating performer, was born on August 2, 1922. She died on December 30, 2009, aged 87

Letters:

Guardian:

Last week, Lucy Tobin talked to students who had got into university via special access schemes, sometimes without A-levels, amid fears that such programmes could be at risk from funding cuts. And a report from the Higher Education Funding Council for England said that teenagers from the poorest homes in England are 50% more likely to go to university than they were 15 years ago:
The stories are inspirational and highlight the need for universities to be flexible in their admissions policies – as indeed many are. They are success ­stories. But I know personally of several cases where students have come in by non-standard routes but left via the standard one – ie unable to proceed after not passing their first or second years, despite receiving substantial extra tutorial and in some cases financial support and having exam committees bend over backwards in looking at mitigating circumstances. This is absolutely not an argument for not admitting such students. But with our resources about to be savagely cut, we either continue to admit them but pull resources from the standard students to support them; admit them but don’t give them extra support (in which case, more will fail); or tighten admissions criteria to admit only those who statistically are likely to do best. And you can guess the choice of the university management, who also need to keep failure rates down and standards up for league table purposes.
AdamTut
• Working-class students are being sold a lie – you can go to university. But you can bet it isn’t going to be one of the top ones (Russell Group or Sutton Trust 13). Need proof? See the Sutton’s Trust Missing 3,000 report or Alan Milburn’s 2009 Panel on Fair Access to the Professions. Law, journalism, medicine are still dominated by children from wealthy backgrounds and/or those who didn’t attend state schools.
PriceRennie
The dividing line
Estelle Morris wisely says that “Politics and politicians are central to education, and their ideologies should shape the system”, but she doesn’t suggest where the dividing line should be drawn between what is to be decided by politicians and what by educationists (The classroom is no place for politicians, 26 January). Yes, political ideology should shape the system: build new schools, raise the school leaving age, abolish grammar schools, provide funding for teaching Mandarin, give every teacher a sabbatical break. These can be fought over by politicians. But educational issues of what is taught (curriculum), how it is taught (pedagogy), whether it is taught successfully (assessment), and how effectively each school tackles its tasks (evaluation) should properly be the province of teachers, working ­collegially, and supported by school governors, neighbouring schools, parents, the local authority inspectorate and, nationally, educational researchers.
Come on, Estelle, tell ‘em.
Michael Bassey
Coddington, Newark
Recruiting young
Jenny Ward justifies her belief that 10-year-olds should be instructed to “write their CVs” and to “think realistically about their career prospects” because it “will make a difference to the kind of car they drive, and the holidays they will have” (Being Superman is not the best plan, 26 January). Clearly, her role as a consultant to Hays recruitment agency explains her view that material wealth is the key to these youngsters’ futures.
I don’t know which I find more sad, the fact that a recruitment agency is allowed into state-funded primary schools, or the fact that a headteacher condones and supports them.
Gordon Vassell
Hull

For all the pre-election pledges to protect its funding, the NHS is clearly threatened by major cuts. Yet one area of English health policy has remained apparently immune from the debate on cost savings – the main parties all still cling to the dogma that efficiency in healthcare is best achieved by ­promoting competition and ­encouraging the private sector to provide ­services. As practitioners of medicine and supporters of the NHS, we believe this consensus must be challenged.  
The NHS is spending £350m a year on external management consultants – often at the expense of its own, internal expertise. Repayments to companies profiting from PFI in the NHS are costing the taxpayer billions. There are many examples of independent sector treatment centres failing to carry out the ­volume of procedures for which they have been paid. GP-led health ­centres – often imposed on communities despite a lack of local demand as part of the costly drive to increase ­commercial involvement in primary care – are struggling to attract patients.
Such examples of public money being wasted are particularly galling to those frontline workers who are being told to gear up for cuts. More­over, the purchaser-provider split has facilitated the diversion of NHS funding to a ­plurality of competing interests, and resulted in disincentives for ­doctors in primary and secondary care to work together to improve services for patients. The ­experience of other health systems indicates that the ­creation of a market results in a significant ­proportion of funding being absorbed by transaction costs.
A recent survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit – hardly known for its hostility to business – found that less than a quarter of the UK population believes the NHS would be improved by a greater role for private providers.
We share the commitment of our patients to a health service that is publicly provided as well as publicly funded. It is time for politicians in all parties to rethink their policies on the role of the market in the NHS in England.
Dr Hamish Meldrum, chairman of council, British Medical Association
Prof Jonathan Brostoff, professor emeritus of allergy and environmental health, Kings College London
Sir Iain Chalmers, editor, James Lind Library and co-founder, Cochrane Collaboration
Prof Anne Chamberlain, emeritus professor of rehabilitation medicine, University of Leeds
Prof Kennedy Cruickshank,  professor of cardiovascular medicine & clinical epidemiology, University of Manchester
Prof John Dickinson, former professor of medicine, St Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical School
Dr Nina Essex, consultant physician (retired)
Prof Nick Finer, hon. professor, Dept of. Medicine, University College London
Dr Peter Fisher, president, NHS Consultants Association
Prof Stephen Franks, professor of reproductive endocrinology, Imperial College London
Prof John Garrow, emeritus professor of clinical nutrition, University of London
Prof Andrew Hattersley, professor of molecular medicine and consultant physician, Peninsula Medical School
Prof Allan House, director, Leeds Institute of Health Sciences
Prof Alan A Jackson,  professor of human nutrition, University of Southampton
Prof Brian Jarman, emeritus professor, Imperial College London
Prof John Jarrett, emeritus professor of clinical epidemiology
Prof Harry Keen, emeritus professor of human metabolism, consultant physician, King’s College London and president, NHS Support Federation
Sandy Macara, former chairman of council, British Medical Association
Prof Vincent Marks, emeritus professor of clinical biochemistry
Prof DR Owens, professor and consultant diabetologist, University Hospital Llandough
Prof Allyson Pollock, director, Centre for International Public Health policy, University of Edinburgh
Prof John Rees, dean of undergraduate education, King’s College London School of Medicine
Prof Wendy Savage, hon professor, Department of Health and Social Science Middlesex University, and co-chair, Keep our NHS Public
Dr Robin Stott, co-chair, Climate and Health Council
Dr Julian Tudor Hart, research fellow, Swansea University Medical School
Prof John D Ward, past vice president, Royal College of Physicians
Prof Malcolm Weller, emeritus consultant psychiatrist

I agree with Dan O’Connor (Letters, 28 January) that following the death of Mary Daly we can question the title of the “world’s first feminist philosopher”. But we can surely do better than the (admirable) Simone de Beauvoir? What about the inspirational Hypatia of Alexandria (AD 370-415), with her student-centred learning; her implied criticism of ethnic intolerance and power games; and her refusal to endorse the established powers and religion. So, no surprise she was hacked to death by the frenzied Christian mobs.
Barry A Hills
Principal lecturer, Glyndwr University
• To understand the use of the term “America”, it is necessary to refer to the Monroe doctrine of 1823 (Letters, 1 February). The intentions and attitude of the United States are shown there.
Janette Smith
Bristol
• One has to admire Ferran Adria’s amazing hi-tech culinary creations (El Bulli’s closing!, G2, 28 January), but my eye was drawn across to the picture on the adjacent page, and I suspect I was not alone in thinking that I would much prefer to sit down to Allegra McEvedy’s spice-rubbed chicken leg with biryani rice.
Michael Smethurst
Winchester, Hampshire
• Recently, I launched into an exploration of the psychogeography of the urban spaces surrounding my residence (Letters, 28 January). Not only did I experience the liminal nature of our minor thoroughfares as a function of wider societal values but I also secured a ­carton of milk and a newspaper from the corner shop.
Robin Pinguey
Liverpool
• As a Toyota is a palindrome, it’s still a Toyota when it’s in reverse (Letters, 1 February).
Tony Augarde
Oxford
• The popularity of your irritating cliches correspondence must mean tough choices for your letters editor (Letters, 30 January). Our hearts go out to him. 
Antony Scott
Bristol
• What is there not to like about cliches?
Martin Pilgrim

David Blunkett entreats us to wait until 2025 to judge New Labour on initiatives in schools such as its literacy programme (Letters, 29 January). We do not need to, however, as the OECD’s programme for international student assessment and the recent Pirls international report on primary school-age literacy both showed a steady and marked decline in children’s reading, writing and comprehension abilities over the period from 2001 and 2006 in the UK, when compared with their peers internationally. What is striking is that this is the period when the literacy hour had become well-established in the majority of primary schools in England, and that even 15-year-olds assessed in the former report would have been subjected to it over this period. Experienced teachers who were critical of the literacy hour for being narrow, inflexible, fragmented and uninteresting, or who questioned its theoretical basis, were labelled by Blunkett and others as cynics and luddites. Even SATs in English, hardly an independent measure, have shown a drop in English scores. “What this government has done and is still doing,” to quote Blunkett, is to make the study of reading and writing tedious and confusing for many young people.
Keith Chambers
London
• I suppose by now we shouldn’t be suprised that Sun columist David Blunkett has gall, but it still beggars belief that the man who abolished the universal student grant and spent his time as a minister imposing benefit restrictions and scapegoating the welfare poor should dare defend this government’s record on equal opportunity and wealth distribution. The consequences of these two actions alone were an economic deterence to social mobility via education and the poor were ghettoised into some of the worst employment in ­western Europe.
Gavin Lewis
Manchester
• A simple solution to the shortage of university places predicted for next autumn would be to insist that those students who attended private secondary schools have to continue their university education privately. ­Having opted out of the state system in order to use their economic advantage to gain educational advantage, these students inappropriately garner public resources in the context of state-funded university places. I do not subscribe to the argument that these students are any more able or intelligent than those who attend state schools. Rather, if all students had access to the same intense tutorial regimes of the private schools, then results would be much more equalised. Under these circumstances, state schools cannot compete. As it is, in terms of raw results, private schools outstrip state schools, therefore ­”winning” more publicly funded ­university places. You could almost say that this is a transfer of educational wealth from the bottom, and increasingly the middle, to the top, a sort of “trickle up” theory.
It would not be too difficult for the “top” universities, such as Oxbridge, to become private like Harvard and Yale, with perhaps tuition fees of £45,000 a year – only slightly more than current yearly private school fees. Thus, educational resources within the publicly funded university sector would be released to the public, which, I believe, is the similar sort of argument used by those who educate their children privately – that they are freeing up resources for the public school system.by educating their children privately. This public-spirited action on behalf of those who use the private schools systems is to be encouraged and hopefully extended into the university system.
Thomas HB Brown
Oxford
• The neatest way to tackle inequality at the top in education is to restrict Oxford and Cambridge to taking only 8% of its students from private schools, thus allowing 92% of places to students from state schools – roughly the ratio of private to public in education. Perhaps the Labour government needs to buy its soul back from the marketplace in order to find the courage to do it.
Stuart Gilbert
Halstead, Essex

The US military/industrial complex is on the move once more (US raises stakes on Iran by sending in ships and missiles, 1 February) as President Barack Obama discloses that he is deploying Patriot missiles in Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Kuwait, and keeping two warships equipped with the Aegis ­ballistic missiles system in the Gulf capable of shooting down Iranian missiles.
At the same time this week, in a new green paper on the future of UK armed forces, Gordon Brown will commit Britain to abandoning more billions of our wealth to defence spending. He is to promise a new generation of warships and fast jets together with an extra £1.5bn for the war in Afghanistan and the safeguarding of defence spending (already running to tens of billions of pounds) from cuts over the next year. In the green paper he pledges to spend £5bn on two aircraft carriers, maintaining troop numbers in the army at in excess of 100,000, committing to the Joint Strike aircraft at a cost of £10bn and continuing with the £20bn Typhoon fighter/bomber aircraft programme.
It really is true that “they never learn”. Yeats’s chilling warning about that “… rough beast, its hour come round at last/ slouches towards Bethlehem …” gets ever closer, but his warning seems mild in comparison with the mounting threat.
Jim McCluskey
Twickenham, Middlesex
• Clearly Tony Blair was hinting at something when he said he “would do it again and next time with Iran” and it seems as if his “special relationship” with the US is still there. Does he know something we don’t know – again?
Richard Le Mare
Coventry

Independent:

The most galling aspect of Tony Blair’s testimony at the Iraq inquiry has been ignored. His “I would do it again” hubris was a self-delusion. Britain did not “overthrow” Saddam; at best we temporarily “liberated” Basra. British participation was not necessary for the American-led campaign to oust Saddam, as the Americans made contemptuously clear before the invasion. Blair’s “calculus” was solely one of whether he would or would not stand shoulder to shoulder with the US, knowing they were determined on regime change.
Absent from Blair’s testimony was any reference to (let alone compassion for) the sacrifices of British troops. In truth, he could not say they suffered and died in a good cause.
Far from deposing a tyrant, Britain handed over control of Basra to Shia militias, some with links to Iran. Troops retreated to the relative safety of barracks, before finally withdrawing from Iraq. There was no honour in British participation or in their withdrawal. It is a chapter of shame almost unequalled in our history. And hundreds of young soldiers paid the price.
And this arrogant fool said he had no regrets.
Chris Forse
Stratford-upon-Avon
Morality has some relevance to international relations, but the national interest has more.
Blair’s choices weakened the United Kingdom by demonstrating to the world just how militarily weak we had become under his leadership.
His choices damaged our relationship with the US by coupling us with an incompetent incumbent who has now been rejected. Obama’s colonial heritage will always present us with a difficulty, but being defined as Bush’s poodle is an unnecessary hindrance.
Blair’s decisions damaged our relationship with Europe through Atlanticist attitudinising that did at least have the advantage of destroying their author’s job prospects. His choices damaged our relationships with the Muslim world, both within and without our borders, through the patronising racism of our approach.
And his choices, from the sanctions to the invasion, have done irreparable damage to the Iraqi people. His choices gave al-Qa’ida enormous traction within Iraq, where it had been marginalised by Saddam, and Blair ensured that Iran became the pre-eminent regional power.
His morality is as irrelevant as his motivations. He got it catastrophically wrong.
Geoff Key
Preston, Lancashire
Evidence supports the view that Tony Blair and George Bush acted in good faith based on a conviction that Saddam should be deposed, albeit with scant examination of the history, facts and likely outcome. Blair then secured the compliance of the Cabinet, Parliament, Civil Service and military to act independently from the UN. The result was an impetuous act of vigilantism.
What was missing was any effort by any of these four bodies to exert their authority over Tony Blair to ensure a proper examination of the history, facts and likely outcome together with a scrutiny of the wisdom of operating outside the United Nations. I await the inquiry’s recommendations on this with interest.
Jon Hawksley
London EC1
The toothless Chilcot inquiry was told by Tony Blair that he had “no regret” about Britain’s part in the Iraq wear and its consequences. If there had been lawyers on the team, they would have asked Blair whether he did not have any regrets about the casualties.
Who can ignore the hundreds of thousands who lost their lives, the wounded civilians, the dead soldiers (British and American), the wounded soldiers, including those so seriously wounded that their lives have been wrecked as the result of the stupidity of Blair?
One leader of a country cannot go to war simply because he doesn’t like another leader, or regime, or merely because he thinks the other leader might have, or develop, weapons of mass destruction. Potentially devastating weapons of mass destruction actually exist in Iran, North Korea and many other nations, but there is no legal right to invade for such a reason.
Bush, Blair and Brown and their henchmen must still be made to stand trial in an international tribunal , as a warning to future national leaders.
Neil C Olive
Newtownards, Co Down
The Iraq Inquiry began with Sir John Chilcot meeting the families of the fallen, and he saw to it that they were properly represented when The Man Who Took Us To War came to be interrogated.
It seemed to me that Sir John offered Mr Blair the opportunity, at the conclusion of his evidence, to acknowledge them too, but instead hubris won the day, and he extolled his own statesmanship, foresight and judgement. Doubtless, his advisers have reminded him of his tactlessness and we can expect a well-rehearsed and deeply heartfelt, “Of course, we must always remember those… etc,” statement soon, but it will come too late.
What can we do about it? Not much, but we can at least decline to buy his impending memoirs, and give ourselves the satisfaction of diminishing the fortune that he expects to make from them.
Peter Forster
London N4
It has become a fashion to call for Tony Blair’s prosecution over the Iraq war. But there are no crimes he can be charged with. Those who believe the war was an act of aggression need to remember that the International Criminal Court cannot initiate prosecutions because the crime remains as yet undefined.
The 2003 war is unlikely to fall under any of the proposed definitions, because its purpose was consistent with the “purposes of the United Nations”. Its aim was to implement the disarmament of Iraq as required by numerous UN resolutions.
Coalition forces have some culpability for many civilian deaths, but the main attacks against civilians have been committed by al-Qa’ida and other Iraqi militias. The UK government might have been slow to respond to some of the allegations of illegality but it has conducted investigations consistent with the requirements of international humanitarian law, which means that Blair could hardly be charged with war crimes.
John Strawson
Reader in Law, University of East London
Though I have a beard, I am neither “shaggy-haired” nor a “hippie”, and I do not “rant” (“The irresistible pull of a fading star enjoying his comeback show”, 30 January).
Joshua Wilson claims that I shouted that Blair was a “serial liar” but was forced to “sit down sheepishly” after receiving no support from the audience. In reality, I announced that Blair was a “serious war criminal” and that I was going to attempt a non-violent citizen’s arrest. As I was escorted from the room by the security guards, a member of the audience told me he agreed with me (as do 23 per cent of the British public, according to one recent poll).
Police refused to arrest Mr Blair, then picked me up and carried me out of the building.
George Monbiot has created a “bounty”, claimable by those attempting peaceful arrests of the former PM. Having witnessed the consequences of Mr Blair’s sanctions and bombing policies in the slums and children’s wards of Basra, I shall continue my own attempts.
Gabriel Carlyle
St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex
Is it possible that if Germany had been invaded “illegally” in the mid-1930s and Hitler removed, the perpetrators would have been severely censured over the thousands killed, although the reality would have been millions saved?
I did not back the war in Iraq, but I am incensed by the number of people who so self-righteously judge those who had to make such dreadful decisions.
Patricia Wood
Halifax, West Yorkshire
I still do not understand how one can be certain that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction but not know where to look for them.
A E Baker
Thirsk, North Yorkshire
You cannot fight against cancer
I was heartened by the words of Dr Bruce Sizer (letters, 28 January). I was diagnosed with stage III ovarian cancer a year ago. After chemotherapy and surgery I was clear. Unfortunately, three months later, at my first follow-up, the cancer had returned. I am now on second-line chemotherapy.
At no time have I regarded myself as “battling against the disease”. I am very lucky to have a loving family and many good friends who give me wonderful support. I find the best way to cope is to make the most of the good days. Living with cancer is not easy and I know that sooner or later time will run out. When it does, I hope I will not be regarded as a “failure”. Well done, Dr Sizer, for your excellent letter.
Scilla Templeton
Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire
As a cancer sufferer, I agree with Dr Sizer that the concept of fighting cancer is a nonsense. I have expressed similar sentiments for some time. This is a cruel and random disease. What must I do to “fight” it?
I have had the treatment, I take the advice and remain as positive as I can, which is not always easy. Unfortunately, my type of cancer (lung) is one of those that Dr Sizer rightly says has a generally poor outlook. As a GP friend said, “Lung cancer is a bastard malignancy”.
But it does not help me to keep on hearing that from the medical fraternity, or to see the pity in the eyes of “those who know”, so please could Dr Sizer and his colleagues just let us all feel that we have some chance?
Malcolm Walton
Farnham, Surrey
A tale about tails of tough glass
Toughened or hardened glass is described in my 19th -century text, Chemistry as applied to the arts and manufactures (letters, 30 January). It was invented by a Frenchman called De La Bastie. He found that if very hot glass is quenched in a cooling bath, as opposed to the normal process of gentle annealing, it makes the glass hard and tough. The process was modified by James Powell, of Whitefriars glassworks, to make hollow items such as beakers.
But the glass is under severe internal stress, which explodes in fragments if the item breaks. This phenomenon was used in the Victorian parlour trick of “Prince Rupert’s Drops”, tear-shaped pieces of glass produced by dripping molten glass into water. If the tail is broken off, the drop disintegrates with a loud crack.
Michael K Baldwin
Sittingbourne, Kent
Briefly…
Lord knows
Is it possible to provide Lord Ashcroft’s UK address so I could write to ask him the status of his residency (“Reveal Ashcroft’s status, officials told”, 1 February)?
J M Parsons
Sheffield
Wages of war
If I were jobless or a subsistence farmer in Afghanistan, with little or no money, I would quickly sign up with the Taliban in anticipation of the largesse that will be made available if I “return to the fold” (report, 28 January). Only people with full bellies and a roof over their heads could dream up a scheme like the one put forward by Gordon Brown. It would be an administrative nightmare, and easily abused.
Beatrix Bown
Histon, Cambridgeshire
Short shrift
Stephen Nash (letters, 26 January) again raises the nonsense that a 30-year cool period in global temperatures can be predicted from multi-decadal oscillations. The basis for this theory is a study of North Pacific sea temperatures which contains only a little more than 90 years of data. Can anyone seriously think that a 60-year cycle can be seen with any certainty in such a short period?
Graham P Davis
Bracknell, Berkshire
No class act
Jenny Macmillan (letter, 27 January) rightly points out that “private schools are able to offer small classes, because parents are willing to pay for them”. This explains how they can provide small classes, but not why. Presumably, they know small classes are better for pupils. Yet when state schools and their teachers complain about their large class sizes, they are patronisingly told by politicians that “class sizes don’t matter”, and that a good teacher should be able to teach a large class.
Pete Dorey
Reader in British Politics, Cardiff University
A bite of the world
Glenis Willmott’s campaign to change food labelling on processed foods (letters, 28 January) may be difficult to put into practice. For example, if a sandwich contains chicken from Thailand, lettuce from New Zealand, tomatoes from Kenya, butter from France, and flour from Egypt, would producers have to list which part of the sandwich comes from which country?
Thomas Wiggins
Wokingham, Berkshire
I didn’t see stars
Shame on you for your “100 Years of Movie Stars” (28 January). As an avid movie-goer for 65 years, I was surprised that the most handsome star, Gregory Peck, and the most beautiful star, Ava Gardner, were not included in your list.
Evelyn Atkinson
West Horsley, Surrey

Times:

Sir, It is a common misconception that morality requires religion (letters, Jan 30). Modern moral thought is heavily indebted to Mill (an atheist) and Kant (whose views are not explicitly based on religion but what he calls “practical reason”). Another key influence, that of Aristotle, is pagan and predates Christianity by hundreds of years.
Ethics is not a branch of theology at all but of philosophy, of which it has been an integral part since the time of Socrates. It is understandable that religious belief engenders strong moralistic feelings in believers, who may have no conception that ethics is possible without it. But arguments from faith have no credence at all in serious moral philosophy.
Gary Kitchen
Southport, Merseyside
Sir, The Rev Jeremy Collingwood (letter, Feb 1) states that those without religion cannot find purpose or meaning in our world, and that we (or, at least, Richard Dawkins) find the Universe bleak, cold and empty. This is far from the truth. Who is to say there is purpose or meaning to our existence, other than to be born, reproduce and finally die? This appears true for all other known life, and I do not find it depressing or frightening to assume that the same applies to us.
The very beauty of the Universe itself is revealed through the constantly evolving scientific literature, the work of countless curious, imaginative people. It is far from bleak; indeed in the terms of modern physics, the vacuum that forms most of the Universe offers the richest phenomenology despite its apparent empty coldness.
To be without religion is not to accept emptiness as an answer, it is to accept that as the beginning, and to embrace the unknown as new territory to explore, rather than hiding a fear of the unknown with dogma dressed as tradition.
James Jackson
Congresbury, Somerset
Sir, The suggestion that Richard Dawkins “can claim the right to lecture Christians only when his charity . . . has done a fraction of the humanitarian work of Christian and other religious agencies over the centuries” illustrates the arrogance of theists who believe that they have the monopoly on morality and altruism. There are many aid organisations that have no religious affiliation, whose workers manage to love their fellow men simply because they are good people, and who find their “meaning” in life (again, not the prerogative of the religious) by helping others.
Bob Bury
Leeds
Sir, What matters is the kind of society that our beliefs create. On this measure, theist societies are found wanting. A fascinating study in the Journal of Religion and Society (Vol 7, 2005) and reported in The Times (Sept 27, 2005) found: “In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy, and abortion in the prosperous democracies.”
How do theist beliefs create such failings?
Christopher Wright
London SW20

Rob Misek wrote:
Janet,

If someone refuses to recognize when the truth is demonstrated, they will not admit it. Honesty and intelligence are required to recognize the truth.

For everyone else, the truth can be demonstrated with logic and science. If it cannot be, then we have demonstrated the truth that we do not know.

One more important point, of many, is that for any unambiguous question, there is only one truthful answer that we all by definition must share.

Often when people argue over the truth of an answer, they have not defined and shared an unambiguous question.

Trudi,

Can you identify any moral value that is contradicted by the truth demonstrated with logic or science? If so then I will concede your point, but I have faith that you cannot.

February 2, 2010 12:57 AM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Janet Denning wrote:
@Rob Misek
there are many who don’t accept the concept of a demonstrable truth; is there a way you could define it so they might understand?
February 2, 2010 12:08 AM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Trudi Morris wrote:
Morality is nothing to do with ‘truth’. It’s about recognizing that you aren’t the only person that matters and that the feelings or welfare of others are of equal (or even more)concern.

I am a Christian it’s true. But I don’t really care what pathway brings morality back to our shores, as long as it comes back soon and remains. The ‘right’ to learn human lessons the hard way is all very well, but the ensuing tide of misery it creates is neither practical, desirable or cheap.
February 2, 2010 12:08 AM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Rob Misek wrote:
Morality is directly proportional to valuing the truth. Human understanding of truth predates any current religion.

Religion has two parts, spiritual faith, what we believe, which threatens nobody and social order, what we do, which has great impact on others.

It is this second part of religion that creates problems for everyone.

Social order must be based on demonstrated truth to apply equally and fairly to everyone.

Here’s the point. When any religion claims that truth is defined by its spiritual belief, it effectively and logically renders truth meaningless by the presence of conflicting beliefs.

Therefore when morality is based on demonstrated truth, it is more reliable than when based on spiritual belief.

In the case of a theocracy like in most muslim states, justice is partly based on spiritual belief instead of demonstrated truth. This in my opinion, is the issue which needs resolution over there.

Believe in the deity of your choice, but act in society in accordance with the demonstrated truth and you will be among the most moral.

Sir, Gerry Sutcliffe, the Sports Minister, suggests that “to be the captain of England you have got to have wider responsibilities for the country” (“Minister puts pressure on FA to strip Terry of captaincy”, Feb 1). While I would not necessarily disagree, I would suggest that Mr Sutcliffe is on shaky ground.
We have had MPs who have remained in office after admitting to an affair and MPs who have remained in office after fiddling their expenses. For as long as this situation continues, Mr Sutcliffe might do better to stay quiet since, unlike MPs, the England captain was not appointed on any kind of political or moral platform.
Brenda Hill
Reading
Sir, While enjoying football and following a Premier League team, I am not a fan of Chelsea or John Terry. However, the calls for his resignation are, in today’s world, ridiculous. If moral rectitude and marital fidelity are requirements of those who play for England one can see a future when a schoolboy team will represent the country.
The remedy for Terry’s situation lies with his wife and the civil courts; his position in the England team and as its captain should rest solely on his football abilities and the cohesion of the squad. On that ground I suspect that Wayne Bridge, rather than Terry, could be the loser.
Colin Fuller
Stafford
Sir, Why are we making so much fuss about Terry’s fitness to lead England after allegations of an extramarital affair? In Fabio Capello’s home country this might be seen as a necessary attribute in achieving the office of prime minister.
Peter Hill
Leeds

Trudi Morris wrote:
‘Sir, Gerry Sutcliffe, the Sports Minister, suggests that “to be the captain of England you have got to have wider responsibilities for the country’

All very new Labour, it matters not how good you are at your job, all that matters is ideological principle.

Skipping over hypocracy, are we to assume that he has upset Mz Harman and the wimmmin in some way?
February 2, 2010 12:20 AM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Peter Cressall wrote:
I have not had the pleasure of meeting Mr Terry. I gather that he kicks a football well. I fail to see what this has to do with a government minister, unless the latter envies his ability.

Sir, Malcolm Rifkind (Opinion, Feb 1) says that defence co-operation with France is essential to maintain the UK’s position as a global military player. He is absolutely right. In an era of public austerity, European defence co-operation is an obvious way of achieving our strategic objectives for less.
The UK can and should take the lead on this, and shape European defence with France, now that France has rejoined Nato as a full member.
The EU spent about £180 billion on defence in 2009 (just under 50 per cent of about £376 billion spent by the US last year). The EU’s military capabilities, however, do not reflect that figure. It is time that Europe set itself the objective of being a genuine second pillar of Nato alongside our American allies.
Roland Rudd
Chairman, Business for New Europe

Dave Chorley wrote:
The French are and always have been duplicitous and Sir Malcolm forgets this.
February 2, 2010 3:59 AM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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In Connu wrote:
I totally agree

Sir, There is a simple answer to the threat that David Wighton identifies of banks moving to Zug or other “favourable” jurisdictions for tax reasons (“Banks caught between Zug and a hard place”, Business Editor’s commentary, Jan 29).
The main EU governments and the US should make it clear that no public contracts will be awarded to organisations that base themselves, their employees or activities disproportionately in low-tax jurisdictions. While banks will undoubtedly do business with individuals and businesses in such jurisdictions, it should not be difficult to establish whether the scale of activity exceeds local requirements.
The tax codes of all developed countries already contain provisions to stop tax avoidance through the use of low-tax jurisdictions, and these could form the basis of domestic legislation, should it be needed. This proposal would almost certainly find favour in the US, France and Germany, and the threat itself would be sufficient to stop any relocation plans very quickly.
Bill Holmes
Menston, W Yorks

Dave Chorley wrote:
Time we implemented an anglicization programme to create jobs here.
February 2, 2010 4:23 AM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Redmond McDonagh wrote:
I suppose that you turn over every purchase you make and check the country of origin, Mr Holmes.

Naturally, you prefer UK made, and reject anything not made in the EU or the US.
February 2, 2010 12:48 AM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Peter Cressall wrote:
I should think that a busineess is to be congratulated for moving to a low-tax area. It is the government’s fault if its tax burden is so high as to make the disruption worth while, and the threat of relocation is a useful curb on a government’s excesses.

Sir, Rabbi Jonathan Romain says that he is greatly saddened by plans to establish a Hindu secondary school because the Hindu community has been very well integrated into wider society (report, Jan 30). There is, however, no more integrated minority than the Jewish community, producing numerous leaders of business, politics and entertainment.
This, despite the existence of about 40 Jewish schools, as compared with a single Hindu school. To seek to deny Hindu parents the same opportunity to prove that faith education can promote integration that has been available to our own community for more than 100 years strikes me as double standards.
Furthermore, for a rabbi to criticise the legitimate ambitions of the Hindu community to have the same educational choices available to every other big faith in Britain may cause interfaith tensions.
Rabbi Aaron Goldstein
Northwood and Pinner Liberal Synagogue
Northwood, Middx

Trudi Morris wrote:
How much simpler and cheaper it would be to allow these schools to flourish. We could bring our schools back to our State religion, there would be far fewer disappointed parents battling for over subscribed schools. Kids would be better educated, win-win-win-win.

The only people complaining would be Blairites. that love to see trouble and division at every turn but in reality cause more of it than was there to start with.

Sir, The cruel irony is not the VAT charged on e-books — while not on printed books and newspapers (letter, Jan 30) — but the VAT levied on the spectacles and contact lenses that those of us with poor sight need to perform daily tasks, let alone read these VAT-exempt items.
Elizabeth Balsom
London SW15

Redmond McDonagh wrote:
In Australia, the equivalent of VAT is levied on spectacle frames, but not on the lenses.

All prescription contact lenses, including coloured, are free of tax.

February 2, 2010 12:55 AM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Peter Cressall wrote:
Sue Burnett: On the breast of a barmaid in Sale, Was written the prices of ale.
And on her behind, for the sake of the blind,
Was the same information in Braille.
February 1, 2010 11:46 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Sue Burnett wrote:
Peter Crassall: there are many alternative forms of transport. There are no alternatives to eyes.
February 1, 2010 11:04 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Peter Cressall wrote:
I need to buy petrol to perform my daily tasks. Should this also be exempted from VAT?

Sir, Simon Barnes (Wild Notebook, Jan 30) paints a picture of rooks, crows and indeed jackdaws being enthusiastically communal birds. I’m confused. Whatever happened to “a crow in a crowd is a rook and a rook on its own is a crow”?
Professor Rhys Williams
Swansea

Sir, Mark Shere (letter, Jan 26) writes that “since 1940 every prime minister that went to university was at Oxford except three (Churchill, Callaghan and Major)”. Is there now no one left in Edinburgh prepared to correct this error because it means owning up to educating Gordon Brown?
Alistair Cooke
London SW1

Sir, Mark Shere (letter, Jan 26) writes that “since 1940 every prime minister that went to university was at Oxford except three (Churchill, Callaghan and Major)”. Is there now no one left in Edinburgh prepared to correct this error because it means owning up to educating Gordon Brown?
Alistair Cooke
London SW1

James Smith wrote:
Or even Kensal Green (before anyone else picks up on it)
February 2, 2010 2:41 AM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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James Smith wrote:
Surely, it’s by way of Bethnal Green?
February 1, 2010 10:31 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Peter Cressall wrote:
It must be a devil of a journey.

Telegraph:

SIR – Scarcely is the ink dry on the Lisbon Treaty than the European Commission is forging ahead with plans to create the office of the European Public Prosecutor (Philip Johnston, Comment, February 1).
The EPP would not be like our own Director of Public Prosecutions, but more like a chief of police with the powers of a judge. Uniformed police would execute his commands and have frightening powers such as ordering house searches (the dreaded knock on the door in the small hours).

He could also order the arrest, interrogation and imprisonment of suspects (for months at a time, with no public hearing).
Doubtless the new position will be sold to the public on the pretext of the need to deal with financial crime.
The establishment of an EPP will surely be the prelude to the imposition of Corpus Juris, a common criminal and judicial system for the EU, because, to enable him to function, the EPP will need such a set of rules. Corpus Juris adopts the Napoleonic (inquisitorial) method, and sweeps away our British system with all its inbuilt safeguards against coercion, such as habeas corpus and trial by jury.
To create the position of EPP it is understood that Article 86 of the Lisbon Treaty gives the European Council the power to establish the office by unanimity. Or, if there is not unanimity, nine or more member states can request the council to draft a regulation and invoke the “enhanced cooperation” procedure.
To ensure that the EU’s writ runs throughout its vassal states, the European Gendarmerie Force (EGF) will doubtless be deployed. Once this trio of the EPP, Corpus Juris and the gendarmerie is in place, EU supremacy will be complete.
The EPP, the Corpus Juris and the Euro-gendarmerie all need our Government’s consent before they can have jurisdiction over us but the portents are not good. The Government has on three recent occasions refused to give undertakings that the EGF would never operate on our soil.
Margaret Curran
Dorking, Surrey
SIR – Philip Johnston rightly calls on the three main party leaders to promise to exercise our veto (one of the few remaining) on any move to create a European Public Prosecutor.
The Early Day Motion (number 637) opposing this threat, after two weeks, still, rather shamefully, has only the original eight signatories.
Sir George Earle Bt
Crediton, Devon
Suicide no answer to ME
SIR – The public support for the verdict in the Gilderdale case (report, February 1) obscures the fact that Lynn Gilderdale’s death might have been avoided if there was more research into the physical causes of ME, rather than it being assumed that it has a psychological cause.
Who knows how many ME sufferers, of which I am one, may feel left without hope of a cure by the widespread acceptance of suicide as a means of tackling ME rather than bio-medical research into a condition that affects a quarter of a million people in Britain.
Sophie Palmer
Cheltenham, Gloucestershire
SIR – Yet again we are getting the message that assisted suicide will only apply to a few people. They said that about the easing of the divorce laws, and they said that abortion would only be for a few very serious medical cases.
Now divorce is on demand, as is abortion. If we are going to have a debate about assisted suicide, let us decide whether we want it to be the normal way to end life, as that is what it will end up as.
Richard Page
Headcorn, Kent
The Iraq war in retrospect
SIR – A dictator who intends to develop weapons that threaten world peace will be rejoicing to see the undiluted misery heaped on leaders of the democracies who have to decide that war with him is in the interests of the free world.
Along with the Conservative opposition and most countries in the free world, I supported the Iraq war at the time. In retrospect, there were serious errors, as is always the case in activities of this kind and we can learn from them.
However, I think that Tony Blair was a superb war leader, and that the world is a far better place without Saddam Hussein and his dreadful sons. All those who are revising their positions and joining the populist baying throng should be ashamed of themselves.
Tom Benyon
Bladon, Oxfordshire
Terrorists’ human rights
SIR – It seems sensible for David Cameron to declare that burglars leave their human rights at the door (report, February 1). What about terrorists?
Charles Mutty
Norwich
Pyjamas in the pub
SIR – I felt an initial horror at the report (January 29) of shoppers visiting Tesco in their nightwear.
However, as my wife and I get older we find that the attractions of an evening in the pub struggle to compete with those of an early bath and dressing gowns in front of the television.
If we could have the early bath and put on a dressing gown then sink a couple of pints and head for bed without having to change we might get out more often.
Bill Davidson
Newark, Nottinghamshire
Needle on top speed
SIR – As I watched my wife use her Toyota RA62 sewing machine, I was troubled by the possibility of the pedal sticking (Business, January 30).
Will it be subject to a recall? Could it run out of control and leave us with yards of ruined curtains?
John Smith
Great Moulton, Norfolk
Constable’s field
SIR – Philip Duly asks if it is possible to identify the location of John Constable’s The Cornfield (Letters, January 30).
The Second World War diary of Eric Rudsdale, a curator at Colchester Castle Museum, may provide the answer.
Rudsdale was very familiar with Constable’s paintings, and had previously identified a hitherto unknown Constable sketch in the Victoria and Albert Museum as a rare drawing of the remains of Colchester’s Roman East Gate.
In 1944, he was undertaking Royal Observer Corps duty at Great Horkesley in Essex, overlooking the Stour valley. On September 2, 1944, he noted in his diary that the view due north from his post was almost the same as that in The Cornfield.
An investigation shows that the site that Rudsdale describes bears some striking similarities to Constable’s painting. There is a stream on the left of the view, from which the boy in the painting quenches his thirst. The Stour weaves its way along the bottom of the valley in the view today and in the painting.
The church in the centre of the painting was repositioned by Constable in his final painting, but preparatory work for The Cornfield shows Stoke by Nayland church on the horizon where it can still be glimpsed today.
I have edited Rudsdale’s diary and hope to undertake further research with experts to ascertain if his location of The Cornfield is correct.
Dr Catherine Pearson
Halesworth, Suffolk
Twelve-step boiled egg
SIR – The time required to boil a perfect egg (Letters, February 1) is dependent upon 12 factors:
1. Temperature at which the egg has been stored.
2. Temperature of the water in which it is being boiled.
3. Age of the egg.
4. Weight of the egg and colour of its shell.
5. Hardness of the water.
6. Barometric pressure.
7. Altitude.
8. Latitude.
9. Material of the vessel used.
10. Distance between pan and egg cup.
11. Material of the utensil used to extract the egg.
12. Sex of the boiler.
Note: if boiling late at night on December 31, consideration should be given to the possible intervention of a leap second.
Tables enabling the boiler to ascertain the exact time required will form the basis of a book, now in preparation.
Jack R. Richards
Hitchin, Hertfordshire
Dialogue, not money, is key to Afghanistan’s future
SIR – Is it not significant that the level of corruption in Afghanistan has increased during the time that the West has stumbled its way through nine years of involvement in the country? And now there is to be a fund making payments to induce Taliban leaders to change their ways (report, January 28): more money to fuel the opportunity for corruption.
I have personally witnessed the foolish belief that with money the developed world can turn insurgents, rebels and warlords into model citizens. In Sierra Leone, the disarmament, demobilisation and re-integration programme that was based on paying rebels $300 for coming in out of the bush with their weapons finally fell apart in 2000, leading to the need for the deployment of a British task force to rescue the situation.
In Darfur, in 2004 African Union monitors and the Sudanese military and rebel liaison officers were paid $130 a day as living expenses, a sum that in some cases was more than 10 times their national wage. No wonder the situation deteriorated. Why would those being paid wish to resolve the problem?
Dialogue is the answer, but this must be based on respect and tolerance, and backed up with civil community projects that reward and encourage both villagers and insurgents to put away their weapons and take up occupations that are beneficial to the community.
Lt Col R.D Symonds (rtd)
Finstock, Oxfordshire
SIR – Our forefathers made the mistake in Africa of not recognising that the people owed their allegiance to their tribal leaders and would never accept our style of government. We are now repeating the same mistakes in the Middle East.
In Afghanistan and Iraq, the real power resides with the tribal leaders, and these are the people Gordon Brown and David Miliband should be taking advice from.
Brian Christley
Abergele, Conwy

Irish Times:

Media coverage of Lillis trial
Madam, – The Garda Commissioner has announced he is looking into the issue of special privileges for some court witnesses (Home News, February 1st). Perhaps he should consider extending these same privileges to those victims’ families, who by exiting the main entrance of the courts complex in Dublin are forced to run the gauntlet of the press at the end of a harrowing trial? – Yours, etc,
JOHN O’BYRNE,
Mount Argus Court,
Harold’s Cross, Dublin 6W.
Madam, – Personal privacy or prurient public curiosity? I am happy that Citizen Treacy was not photographed before or after she sat in a courtroom and gave intimate evidence to a crowd of more than a hundred people. What she looks like has absolutely nothing to do with “public interest”.
The sad thing is that she might have been better off making a brief appearance on the footpath. She will now be hunted by paparazzi who will take (in every sense of the word) photos of her and sell them to the highest tabloid bidder who will happen to increase circulation while publishing the pictures to honour the mantra of “public interest”. – Yours, etc,
ROBERT DUFFY,
Hacketstown, Co Carlow.
Church’s role in primary schools
Madam, – It seems to me desirable that the State school system should be focused on education and not indoctrination, with an emphasis on producing citizens rather than simply turning out Catholics, Protestants, Jews or Muslims.
A republic whose citizens understood and embraced the notion that they had duties and responsibilities towards their country as well as holding expectations and deriving rights from it would be a fine place to live. – Yours, etc,
BERNARD KEOGH,
Dollymount Park,
Clontarf,
Dublin 3.
Madam, – Louis O’Flaherty (January 30th) quite rightly reminds us of Lord Stanley’s famous letter of 1831 setting out the parameters for the new national school system. While a success in so many other ways, as a mechanism for creating a non-denominational system – in a country where over 90 per cent of the population were Catholic! – it was a comprehensive failure.
Surely in modern, pluralist, democratic, tolerant states, parents have the right to choose to send their children to a school that reflects their moral values – this after all, is the right that those whose children attend Educate Together schools, for example, exercise daily. Despite the breezy and errorenous presumption of Educate Together that somehow there was a time when schools did not, as a rule, accept and cater for children of other faiths, the organisation points the way, surely, to how we should treat institutions with precisely the same agenda – in other words the right to educate children in a particular and articulated moral setting – by allowing religious schools of any persuasion the same rights to management, ethos and so forth. This, after all, is surely the mark of the enlightened, pluralist, tolerant state? – Yours, etc,
Dr BRENDAN WALSH,
School of Education Studies,
Dublin City University,
Dublin 9.
Madam, – I am drawn to disagree with my fellow alumnus Heidi Good (January 30th). Surely the aim of religious ethos education is not to simply recruit members to witness and organised prayer, but to instill in them overtly or otherwise Christian, Jewish, Muslim or other religious values that correlate with a healthy, progressive and functioning society.
Churches and religious orders can play a very powerful and positive role in many young people’s lives through this manner and I believe withdrawing from education will see the church lose much of this positive influence over a much larger audience then can be attracted to Saturday night youth clubs, weekends away or summer camps. – Yours, etc,
NEALE RICHMOND,
Kingston Heights,
Ballinteer,
Dublin 16.
Madam, – Two correspondents (James Scully-Lane and Nick Hilliard, February 1st) might be surprised to know that even in France, that bastion of secularism, the state gives aid to private, mainly Catholic, schools. Such aid is mainly in the form of payment of teachers’ salaries and is conditional on teachers having state-approved pedagogical qualifications and on schools following the national curriculum.
It looks very like what is done in Ireland.
State financial aid to non-state schools is widespread internationally, even in quite secularised societies. The United States is rather exceptional in the way in which the constitution is interpreted by the Supreme Court.
I don’t condone any abuses, whether of children or of power, but much of the correspondence on this subject reeks of anti-Catholic and anti-religious bigotry rather than any adherence to genuine liberal principles. – Yours, etc,
JOHN SHEEHAN,
Willbrook Lawn,
Dublin 14.
Madam, – In England we have the prospect of parents competing to get their children into church primary schools. Even a secular minister, David Miliband has elected to send his child to a church school two miles distant in preference to a state school 80 yards away. The church schools are seen as having a better, more civil ethos, both in regards to staff and pupils. Also they tend to have better academic success.
So perhaps some caution would be advisable on this question in Ireland lest the baby be thrown out with the bathwater. – Yours, etc,
WILLIAM GJ SHEPHERD,
Beaparc Downs,
Monkstown,
Co Dublin.
Creating postal codes
Madam, – I read with dismay that our Government is about to seek an unnecessary tender to have very necessary postal codes given to all of us (Home News, February 1st). Why spend money on a tender when the sorting offices of An Post, to say nothing of the postmen and women, could supply fully numeric postal codes with their eyes shut?
The Government appears to have learnt nothing from recent financial debacles in wasting money where it does not have to be spent all, in spinning the wheels of unnecessary processes, and in ignoring what people of talent can offer for nothing as part of their life’s work and experience, as their contribution to a modern Ireland.
The Government apparently has indicated that we are to have the imperfect alphanumeric postal code system as in Britain and a few other countries, ignoring the hugely better fully numeric system, almost universally accepted, which allows post boxes to be appended to the number.
The imperfect alphanumeric system is based on the first three letters of the town or village followed (in some jurisdictions) with a further 46,656 alphanumeric possibilities. Hello there! Has the Government forgotten the sheer number of towns and villages in this country beginning with BAL- and KIL-? It beggars belief that governments have to make simple things difficult in an attempt to justify their temporary positions of power.
A further advantage of a fully numeric system is that it allows a final or first series of the postal codes to be reserved for special purposes, something which the alphanumeric system cannot do. – Yours, etc,
MICHAEL J McCANN,
Crodaun,
Celbridge, Co Kildare.
Court referral to Magdalene laundries
Madam, – Justice for Magdalenes (JFM), the survivor advocacy group, is due to meet officials in the Department of Education today. The meeting follows statements in recent days by the Minister for Education, Batt O’Keeffe, revising his assertion last September that “the State did not refer individuals nor was it complicit in referring individuals to the laundries”.
In a letter addressed to me (dated January 27th), Mr O’Keeffe acknowledges that the Department of Justice has now “confirmed that some women were referred by the courts to the Magdalen laundries”. The Minister repeated this new understanding in his response to two Parliamentary Questions in the Dáil on Thursday last. Justice for Magdalenes welcomes the Minister’s acknowledgment of State complicity and suggests that it provides the basis for moving towards the establishment of a distinct redress scheme for Magdalene survivors.
We assert, however, that evidence of State complicity also involves the Department of Education directly. Mr O’Keeffe continues to avoid this issue, in his letter and his comments in the Dáil. Rather, he maintains the distinction between “children who were taken into the laundries privately or who entered the laundries as adults” as “quite different to persons who were resident in State-run institutions.” Justice for Magdalenes agrees with Mr O’Keeffe that section 1 (3) of the Residential Institutions Redress Act, 2002 provides redress to survivors who as children “were transferred to a Magdalen laundry from a State regulated institution.”
We would ask, however, that the Minister make public the number of children transferred in this manner and the number of survivors who have applied to the Redress Board on this basis.
Justice for Magdalenes disagrees with Mr O’Keeffe with respect to “children who were taken into the laundries privately”. We assert that the State failed to meet its Constitutional obligation to protect all such children from forms of abuse occurring outside the home. Ireland’s Constitution governs the State’s obligation to ensure that all children receive a “certain minimum education” (Art. 42, sec. 3, sub. 2). It indicates the State’s obligation to “supply the place of the parents” in cases where parents “fail in their duty towards their children” (Art. 42, sec. 5). It outlines the State’s obligation to protect very young “workers” from abuse and exploitation (Art. 45, sec. 4, sub. 2).
The means by which a child ended up in a laundry is immaterial, as this did not obviate the State’s constitutional obligation to protect her. That surely is what Dáil Éireann meant when it voted unanimously “to cherish all of the children of the nation equally”.
Justice for Magdalenes also points to the Department of Education’s awareness historically that children were confined within Magdalene laundries.
Despite this awareness, the State never intervened to protect these children. The Reformatory and Industrial School Systems Report, 1970 (ie, the Kennedy report), commissioned by the minister for education, documents this awareness. In a discussion of children placed in “religious convents” by “parents, relatives, social workers, welfare officers, clergy, or gardaí,” the report states that “the committee is satisfied that there are at least 70 girls between the ages of 13 and 19 years confined in this way who should properly be dealt with under the Reformatory Schools’ system” (page 39). Likewise, in a table attempting to represent the “total number of children in care,” the report asserts there were “617 children . . . resident in ‘Voluntary Homes’ which have not applied for approval” (page 12).
These “voluntary homes”, as officials in the Department of Education can confirm, were typically Magdalene laundries and other “religious convents”. Mr O’Keeffe contends that the Magdalene laundries “were not regulated or inspected”.
Justice for Magdalenes would ask Mr O’Keeffe to explain why, given the department’s awareness that children were confined in them, these institutions were never visited, inspected or licensed? We ask that the Minister for Education now account for every child confined to a Magdalene laundry since the founding of the State. We demand that the State produce records for all the women and children it was complicit in referring to the laundries. We urge the State to enter into dialogue with the four religious congregations involved so that they too might make available their records for all women and children entering Magdalene laundries after January 1st, 1900. Access to these records is the crucial next step in understanding this aspect of the nation’s history and in establishing an appropriate redress scheme for survivors.
Finally, Justice for Magdalenes contends that the State should apologise to survivors for its part in the abuse of women in Ireland’s Magdalene laundries. – Yours, etc,
Dr JAMES M SMITH,
Associate Professor,
English Department and Irish Studies Program,
Boston College,
Chestnut Hill,
Massachusetts,
US.
Plan to help home-owners
Madam, – I can’t believe we are putting forward plans to bail out struggling home owners. It seems this Government is obsessed with propping up the collapsing housing market (“Struggling homeowners to get help, says Minister”, Home News, February 1st).
When will we have the sense to allow the housing market to find its correct value – similar to what’s happening in the US. Unfortunately the only way this will happen is to allow people to lose their homes. Only when this bubble is fully deflated will young people be in a position to get back into the housing market.
I would beg politicians to let the market take its course and keep their noses out of it, otherwise this bubble will take years to get over. – Yours, etc,
JOHN KEARNEY,
York Road,
Dún Laoghaire,
Co Dublin.
Exceeding the 30km/h limit
Madam, – I warmly welcome the extension of the 30km/h speed limit area in Dublin city centre (Front page, February 1st).
It will make an immediate impact, creating a less threatening environment both for pedestrians and cyclists. This is precisely what the recently published National Cycle Policy Framework is about. As a cyclist, there is a striking difference between being passed at close quarters by a bus, truck or other motor vehicle travelling at 50km/h, as against a more constant, civilised and safer 30km/ph. As a citizen, I will want to spend more, not less, time in a calmer city centre.
What a pity the AA and Dublin City Business Association cannot acknowledge these facts.– Yours, etc,
DAMIEN Ó TUAMA,
Captains Road, Dublin 12.
Madam, –  I was driving to work on Monday morning observing the new (ridiculous) 30km/h speed limit. As I was trickling along I was overtaken by a senior citizen on a motorised cart. Surely the law applies to these type of vehicles as well? We all have to get to where we are going, but please could Dublin City Council or Minister for Environment John Gormley do something to put an overall restriction on all motorised vehicles and not just against the usual offenders: petrol and diesel.  Just because there is no road tax necessary on other vehicles, doesn’t mean that they can’t cause harm. – Yours, etc,
GARRETT CONCANNON,
Woodview Heights,
Dunboyne, Co Meath.
Madam, – Now I know the nanny state has well and truly taken over.
First, I fully support the view that some parts of the city, and other places, require the 30km/h restriction. A few years ago I recommended such restriction, to the then chief superintendent, for parts of Dún Laoghaire town centre, for school precincts and for other places with which I would be very familiar where such a restriction would be in the best interests of road safety, for all the reasons indicated in the City Council’s decision.
When I hear the explanation for some of the reasons given for the decision – pedestrian and cyclist fatalities and motor accidents caused by speed – I begin to question the plan. In the absence of specific data that shows: 1. a breakdown of the number and type of fatalities; 2. the locations of same; and 3. the causes, I remain to be convinced that it is not based on some other reasoning, far removed from good traffic planning. I’m sure the public would like to see the maps that show the number of all road fatalities in the city, in addition to the numbers, and the cause, at each location.
As a some-time cyclist, aside from also being a motorist, I am acutely conscious of the blithe disregard of traffic lights shown by many cyclists, not to mention the fact that very few wear high visibility gear and that many do not use front or rear lights.
How many cyclists have been prosecuted in the past year?
The utter disregard for traffic lights shown by pedestrians is an indictment of public attitudes towards their own safety. How many pedestrians have been fined for jay-walking in the past year?
There are good and valid reasons for having speed restrictions in residential areas where the streets are narrow, where the carriageway is shared by children and the elderly pedestrians, cyclists and public transport alike, where the 50km/h is very decidedly too fast. We all know such areas.
What should be a welcome plan should not be mired in controversy before it is even operational. Back to the drawing board. – Yours, etc,
BRENDAN HENDERSON,
Cabinteely Close,
Cabinteely, Dublin 18.
Madam, – Lord Mayor of Dublin Emer Costello’s announcement (Home News, January 29th) of the expansion of Dublin city centre’s 30km/h limit raises an interesting scenario regarding enforcement.
Previously the areas concerned were essentially flat, but now we have two significant slopes, Christchurch/Dame Street and Parnell Square. Here even the most unfit cyclist could find themselves travelling well in excess of the new limit and in receipt of an €80 speeding fine. That’s bad enough, but it may even be worse.
What happens about the two mandatory penalty points? Will an offending cyclist who also holds a driving licence end up incurring penalty points even though he/she was not actually driving at the time? Clarification of this anomaly is urgent. – Yours, etc,
DAVID REDDY,
Durham Road,
Sandymount, Dublin 4.
Extreme potholes
Madam, – I suggest that extreme potholing is added to the list of sports now available here! – Yours, etc,
BRIAN ROSS,
Windgates,
Bray, Co Wicklow.
Dissolving the NUI
Madam, – There are thousands of current students already progressing in courses for bachelor, master, doctoral and research degrees in the universities of the NUI. They have legal, moral and practical rights to complete the degrees and receive the qualifications for which they registered. Overseas students who have come here, at great expense to their families, have extra moral rights to receive the NUI degrees they value and are working hard for.
It is the height of educational and legal ignorance as well as political arrogance for any politician to announce the abolition of a university at short notice. All universities in this country are paid for by the citizens of the country and they are all part of Ireland’s national university system; those who think they are some type of special prima donnas should be properly brought into it. – Yours, etc,
Prof Emeritus RN BUTLER,
Cruachan Park, Galway.

Well I must be off

best wishes John

Tidying up

Tidying 1 February 2010

It sooo cold, dry but cold, I wonder if I will manage to get around the park? But I manage it. It not to bad if I wear my gloves, by fingers have a tendency to get chapped and suffer from the cold. I pass two joggers wearing coats. Coats? Well I might be near or at the bottom of the jogging hierarchy but at least I don’t wear a coat, a fleece granted and nice and warm it is too, but not coat, if you want to be warm you trot faster.
Its tidy, tidy tidy, for Mary book group cometh here tomorrow, and I want things to be perfect for the ladies. So Fluff is told not to drop any more fur on the floor and the books and papers are tidied away, the kitchen is cleaned and a faint look of respectability comes over the old place.
I have already bought chocolate biscuits for them, I think they are doing Larkin, or was that last month?
Fluff admonished for depositing her fur in the living room, goes off and lies on my bed to deposit it there. Though why in this freezing cold weather she wants to moult I have no idea. Kitten and Puddy are still sharing Mary’s bed uneasily and glaring at one another.
I rake up the leaves in the back garden, piling them around the base of the great beech tree, harder than it looks Mr Frost still has his teeth in the lawn. I must do something about it, though it the lawn has defeated three gardeners. I drag ten huge sacks of leaves down to the entrance of the drive, I do hope that the Council men turn up and pick them up tomorrow, before the ladies of the book group arrive
.
I keep thinking of Gwendolyn in the Importance of Being Ernest

Cecily. Do you suggest, Miss Fairfax, that I entrapped Ernest into an engagement? How dare you? This is no time for wearing the shallow mask of manners. When I see a spade I call it a spade.
Gwendolen. [Satirically.] I am glad to say that I have never seen a spade. It is obvious that our social spheres have been widely different.
What a lovely put down by Gwendolyn to hint that her social circle is so elevated that she has never seen a spade. I am sure that the ladies of the Roundhay book group have certainly seen a spade, perhaps even used one, but I pretend that they too are of such social elevation that they would be mortally offended by the sight of one not to mention my garden sacks full of leaves.
Joyce Grenfell 1972 only eight years on from when we last say her in 1964 what a difference. Still I am enjoying the DVD such wisdom tinged with just a hint of sadness. Pheasant again but for some reason it is not as good as usual, even Puddy turns up her nose at it after yowling at me and lashing her tail while I was cutting it up. Mary trounces me, again, at Scrabble.

Postcards

Lanercost Priory Cumbria founded 1166, Cumbria, England

Limburg, The Netherlands

Raphael, The Virgin and Child

Scottish Lochs, Lomond Alsh, Katrine, Duich, Etive, Earnhead, An Eileen, Ness

West Beach Southsea, Portsmouth, Hampshire, England

Obituary: Kay Carmichael: Labour Party policy adviser, activist and lecturer

Kay Carmichael was one of the most influential and controversial figures in social work in Scotland. She was born into the Labour Party and into a dysfunctional family: her Protestant father and Catholic mother had a rocky marriage, marked by her father’s long absences and her mother’s alcoholism. At the age of 4 she was placed in a convent school in Ayrshire, where she was humiliated by the mother superior for bed-wetting.
However, the convent gave her a passion for reading, and when she returned to Glasgow after wartime evacuation she spent each day in a local library, reading two books a day. In 1948 she married Neil Carmichael, who was to become MP for Glasgow Woodside, and undertook a course in psychiatric social work, working with girls in prison. She later became a lecturer in social work at the University of Glasgow, designing the first course in probationer training.
With the election of Harold Wilson’s Labour Government in 1964, Kay Carmichael moved steadily on to the public stage. She became a member of Wilson’s policy unit and served on the Kilbrandon commission, out of which the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968 emerged, which provided for the children’s panel system that has served as a model far beyond Scotland. In the early 1970s she helped to pioneer the special unit at Barlinnie prison in which inmates found guilty of violent crimes worked much more closely with each other and with jail staff in less austere conditions. It was to be sharply criticised but led to the rehabilitation of a number of prisoners, the most notable of whom was the murderer Jimmy Boyle, who went on to become an author and sculptor.
From 1975 to 1980 Carmichael was deputy chair of the Supplementary Benefits Commission, with special responsibility for deciding what benefit provision should be made. She took leave of absence from th University of Glasgow and decided to rent a house in the Lilybank area of the East End of Glasgow, apply for benefit herself and attempt to live on what she was awarded: £10.50 a week. At the same time BBC Scotland was making a series of films about a group of tenants in the area who were battling with the local council’s housing department to improve their environment and accommodation. Later the BBC discovered what Carmichael had been doing and her experience was incorporated into the series. She talked vividly and movingly of how even young children’s violent attitudes had made her afraid and the temptation to steal when her benefits could not meet her needs. A one-hour programme for the BBC network was compiled from the three films shown in Scotland, and transmitted despite the opposition of the Controller of BBC Scotland, Alasdair Milne, and is believed to have led to the subsequent increase in benefits.

After her divorce from her first husband, Carmichael married Professor David Donnison, who had chaired the Supplementary Benefits Commission and who became Professor of Urban Planning at Glasgow. She wrote a study of people, particularly men, who were unable to cry, Ceremony of Innocence: Tears, Power and Protest, which was later made into a programme presented by her for Radio 4, and she published a version of the thesis that gained her a PhD at the age of 76, Sin and Forgiveness.
She firmly believed that activists were needed at the base of a political party, but her individualism ensured that she always had an uneasy relationship with Labour, which she left after 50 years of membership when Tony Blair became leader. For a time she joined the Scottish Socialist Party and latterly was a member of the SNP. She lived near Dunoon and was a frequent campaigner against nuclear weapons at Faslane naval base. She was a founder member of a group that attempted to enter the base armed only with flowers and vegetables. She once refused to pay a fine for breaking into the base and was imprisoned for 14 days at Cornton Vale, where she had once worked, but was furious when someone paid the fine and she was released.
She is survived by her husband and a daughter from her first marriage.
Kay Carmichael, academic and policy adviser, was born on November 22, 1925. She died on December 26, 2009, aged 84

Letters:

Guardian:

Richard Thaler seems to think just because “nudges” are more effective at changing people’s behaviour than regulations, they could therefore replace regulations (We can make you behave, 28 January). In reality, the functions of regulation go far beyond individual behavioural change. We regulate to protect innocent third parties from harm – and to provide a basis for punishing those who harm others. Sadly, the shallow “nudge” agenda that Thaler is promoting ignores these wider issues of regulatory justice. No wonder the Tories think it makes a good fig leaf for a right-wing programme of deregulation.
Tim Horton
Research director, Fabian Society
• I share entirely Cecilia Estrada’s views (Letters, 28 January). My country, Colombia, is right next to hers and I hate it when people think that when I say Colombia, South America, it somehow makes me an American from the southern part of the USA. US leaders refer to their country as “America” but in the back of their minds they believe that they “own” the whole continent. The Colombian government’s authorisation to allow US military bases in the country is very worrying indeed. 
Magdalena Davis
Birmingham
• If citizens of the US should be called Ustatians, then subjects of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland should be called Ukadians.
Bob Mays
Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire
• I hope the car in front is a Toyota. I certainly don’t want one behind me. (Faults threaten to wreck ­Toyota’s ­reputation,29 January).
Dave Pope
Bradford
• Wretched away form this season has led to Gillingham fans singing the praises of manager Homer Stimson ­(Letters, 29 January).
Bill Hawkes
Whitstable, Kent
• I hate to report that despite my putting out food and seed, all the small birds that visited my garden have ­disappeared. Only two blue tits, two sparrows and one robin have survived.
Marie Blundell

On at least two crucial points, the Chilcot inquiry allowed Tony Blair to get away with murder (Righteous, responsible but no regrets: Blair’s day in the dock, 30 January). First, Blair continued to claim an essential link between Iraq and 9/11. It is a matter of record, however, that just a few hours after the 9/11 attacks, the then US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, was telling his aides to come up with plans for striking Iraq – without a shred of evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved. No such evidence subsequently came to light.
Second, Blair claimed a humanitarian justification for the war. Between 2000 and 2002, he stated: “[Iraq] had a child mortality rate of 130 children per 1,000, as bad as in the Congo… Now the figure is 40 child deaths per 1,000…” What this statistic fails to take into account is the draconian UN blockade of Iraq, under which child mortality more than doubled between 1990 and 1999, rising from 56 per 1,000 live births in the period 1984-89 to 131 per 1,000 in 1994-99. That none of the five members of the Chilcot committee was able or willing to take Blair up on these points is nothing short of a national disgrace.
Neil Foxlee
Lancaster
• I watched most of Tony Blair’s attendance at the Chilcot inquiry on Friday,  and I thought he was outstanding (Leader, 30 January). I wonder who is on the real planet, him or you? He was right to emphasise responsibility. I have some idea of what he means, because as a civil engineer I had responsibility for technical decisions often involving the safety of employees and the public.
I was also called into the army and served as a Royal Engineer Sapper and then officer. We accepted the duty to serve, in my case even though I was a near-pacifist.
I am sure that history will judge Blair much more fairly than you can, and will decide that he was an honourable man who helped to make the world safer.
Ian Hamilton
Richmond, Surrey
• In a speech in May 1997 the newly elected prime minister, Tony Blair, stated: “Mine is the first generation able to contemplate the possibility that we may live our entire lives without going to war or sending our children to war.” Last week, Blair appeared in front of the Chilcot inquiry. He was supposed to be there to answer questions on the war in Iraq, but used the opportunity to also make clear that he favoured military action against Iran. In the course of his testimony he mentioned Iran no less that 58 times. “Any possibility of WMD should be stopped,” he said, “Iran is in a very similar situation [to Iraq], which is why these lessons are so important.”
Stefan Simanowitz
Chair, Westminster Committee on Iran
• Your leader writer talks of Blair “being on a different planet”. Perhaps he would feel less alienated if he stuck to what actually happened at the inquiry.
He says Blair was not “tested on his dealings with Bush and when and why he agreed irrevocably to go to war”. He was. Blair said he never agreed irrevocably to go to war – the decision was not taken until March 2003. He was absolutely clear that there was no covert agreement before that.
The article also says that the committee failed to point out that Iraq had nothing to do with al-Qaida or Islamist terrorism, and the implication is that Blair was basing his argument on a belief that it had. This is misleading. What Blair said was that he was no longer prepared to allow a rogue, failing state to carry on with a WMD programme after 9/11 because there was a danger that it could supply terrorists with materials. Again, this was very clear to me.
Ronnie Paris
London
• Martin Kettle (Comment, 29 January) states: “There are very few ­significant secrets about Iraq still to be revealed.” How about the mysterious ­circumstances surrounding the death of Dr David Kelly, which the authorities have decided will not be made public for 70 years?
Goudie Charles
Hayle, Cornwall
• The big question I think the whole issue raises is why the British prime minister has so much power. There seem to have been too many conversations between just two or three people in the making of this decision. I would like to see the Chilcot inquiry recommend that parliament consider how to change the way decisions are arrived at, and improve the use of a cabinet system of government to weigh up information before it is presented to parliament.
Valerie Fawcett
Abingdon, Oxfordshire
• If reports coming out of the Chilcot inquiry aren’t enough to make nonsense of this country’s “special relationship” with America, then Ed Pilkington’s report (Fox most trusted news channel in US, poll shows, 27 January) surely must.
John Smith
Beighton, Sheffield
• At the beginning of the week when the Chilcot inquiry presented its most prestigious performers it was ironic that the Guardian’s Romantic Poets selection of Shelley’s work should appear. Your extract of his poem Queen Mab opened with the telling couplet: “War is the statesman’s game, the priest’s delight, /The lawyer’s jest, the hired assassin’s trade.”
Cecil Ballantine
Gloucester
• His appearance has confirmed by belief, beyond doubt, that the world is a far safer place without Tony Blair.
Dr Karl Brennan
Sheffield
• Sadly, could I be the first in Britain to use the expression “to do a Chilcot”?
Dominique Marcelli

The attorney general’s legal opinion before the invasion of Iraq in 2003 resulted from a failure to understand the American attitude to law in general, and international law in particular, and a confusion between advice and advocacy.
The American legal mind regards law not as a thing that gets applied but as a process that never stops. In the British tradition, and still more in the European tradition, judges (and hence legal advisers) are strongly constrained to make sophisticated choices among possible views of the law, while respecting a structure which we regard as containing the existing state of the law.
The American view of international law is familiar to all international lawyers. It regards international law as a thing that is created pragmatically through a dialogue of conflicting international interests. The American legal opinion that Lord Goldsmith heard from White House and state department lawyers, which caused him to refocus his own opinion, will certainly have reflected the idea that international law is what the government thinks it should best be understood to be, on the assumption that other governments are fully entitled to take another view and to work to have that view adopted.
The job of an advocate is to win cases. The job of an adviser is to be right. To regard the government as a client is correct when the attorney general is called on to act for the government in litigation. It is not correct when his role is to advise in advance of a serious decision.
Philip Allott
Professor emeritus of international ­public law, Cambridge University
• Both the United Nations charter and customary international law did forbid the invasion and occupation of Iraq. The only things that permitted it were the misguided intentions of Bush and Blair and the fact that the erstwhile foreign secretary, Jack Straw, was a lawyer but not an international lawyer and the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, was a lawyer who took his lessons from US sources that cannot be named.
Such an event should never happen again if attention is paid to the principles of international law, and every single day left in the so-called fight against terrorism will benefit from the constant direction of international lawyers. Article 38 of the UN charter states that the sources of international law are international conventions, international custom, the general principles of law recognised by civilised nations, judicial decisions and the teachings of the most highly qualified publicists of the various nations, as subsidiary means for the determination of rules of law.
Dr Gbenga Oduntan
Centre for Critical International Law, Kent Law School

Joseph Stiglitz’s article (A principled Europe would not leave Greece to bleed, 25 January) and your leader (Under a Byzantine shroud, 30 January) offer quite a sensible analysis of Greece’s recent economic troubles. Some other international press coverage vastly ­exaggerates the problem.
The European Central Bank’s dogmatic hardline euro policy, at a time of severe recession, is responsible not only for Greece’s loss of competitiveness, which led to the twin deficits, but also for a really bad European export performance. This has been reduced by $109.1bn (€78.3bn) in the past 12 months. The recession is seriously testing the euro.
Greece is a small part of the euro area, 2.7%, with roughly 3.9% of euro-area public debt. It is indeed in serious trouble, and various domestic factors, such as its rigid product markets, its tremendous public waste and, above all, its incompetent political elite, have offered plenty of room for extended international discontent. How­ever, Greek GDP declined by 1.1% in 2009, from 2.9% in 2008, less than the average fall in the euro area, and much less than that of some countries. Also, the rise in the debt-GDP ratio for Greece from 2007 to 2011 will be 39.8% points – bad, you may say. But compare it with the UK’s 44% points, Ireland’s 71.1% points, Spain’s 37.9% points, and the US’s 35.7% points. Not quite the tragedy some people allude to!
As for the risk of bankruptcy, which many believe may lead to an exit from the euro area, the current level of Greek indebtedness in both the private and public sectors is already comparable to those of the euro area countries. According to IMF data, Greece’s average total indebtedness, private and public, is about 179% of GDP. The EU’s average is 175%; Belgium’s 219%; Ireland’s 222%; Italy’s 194%; the Netherlands’ 234%; Portugal’s 197%; and Spain’s 207% – all well above Greece’s figure. Greece has more public than private debt. But this is only due to the inability of the state mechanism to collect taxes from the privileged – in particular, money that goes to luxurious imports and overconsumption. Direct taxes amount to about 20% of GDP, compared with the EU’s 26% average. A simple increase could bring in ¤16bn annually, and restrict significantly the spreads on Greek bonds and the public borrowing needs.
Philip Arestis, University of Cambridge
Theodore Pelagidis, London School of Economics and University of Piraeus

Independent:

Your report on Lynn Gilderdale (27 January) worried me greatly. This is because however a law allowing assisted suicide is framed, and however many “safeguards” it has, it would not have saved me when I wanted to die. In fact, I think few people can understand Lynn’s desperate and ongoing wish to die better than I can. And yet still I say the law should not allow actions such as hers, regardless of how disabled or determined is the one requesting it, and how “loving and compassionate” is the person asked to assist.
I use a wheelchair full-time, having spina bifida, hydrocephalus, emphysema, osteoporosis and arthritis. Like Lynn, I desperately wanted a child, and had to come to terms with the knowledge that I never would. I have severe pain every day, and, as with Lynn, morphine doesn’t always alleviate it. I also have crushed and fractured vertebra, caused by my osteoporotic bones, which means additional pain. Typing this causes even more pain, due to arthritis in my fingers, wrists and elbows. But writing this letter is important, despite the pain.
Twenty-five years ago, I, like Lynn, decided I wanted to die, a settled and entirely competent death wish that lasted for 10 years. During those years I attempted suicide more than once. On the occasion I best remember, I was treated against my will by doctors, who saved my life. Then, I was very angry with the doctors who saved my life, but now I’m extremely grateful. Yet because of the requirements of the Mental Capacity Act, and the Director of Public Prosecutions’ new guidelines, if similar circumstances obtained now, I would be left to die.
Had someone taken the apparently “common sense, decent and humane” decision to end my life all those years ago, no doubt a jury would also have given my “helper” a conditional discharge, if that.
But I would actually have missed the best years of my life, notwithstanding pain that is worse now than it was when I wanted to die. No one would ever have known that the future held something better for me, not in terms of physical ability, but in terms of support and the love of friends who refused to accept my view that my life was “over”.
It’s very easy to give up on a body as “broken” as Lynn’s or mine, and it can be tough to continue. But it is possible to come out the other side of a death wish, to use well the time that would otherwise have been lost, and to demonstrate that life is precious and worth living, despite many serious challenges.
Alison Davis
Blandford Forum, Dorset
Could Blair face a war crime charge?
As a lawyer, I consider there is now possibly sufficient evidence to indict Mr Blair on a war crime charge (front page, 30 January). In his evidence to Chilcot, he appeared, at least implicitly, to concede that the evidence on WMD was substantially weaker than he had stated in the Commons in 2003. Equally, it is clear from his remarks and also from much of the other evidence, that he was determined to invade Iraq regardless of whether there was sufficient evidence of WMD which could threaten the security of this country.
But, unusually, there are no lawyers on the inquiry panel, however distinguished the members are in their own fields. I suggest that if the panel felt there may possibly be grounds for indicting Mr Blair on war crimes charges, because he breached international law in authorising an invasion of Iraq, they should recommend in their report to the Prime Minister (whoever he may be) that he should send the papers to a leading judge for consideration.
John Moses
Richmond, Surrey
So now we know: 9/11 was Blair’s starting-point. To him, 9/11 and the Saddam regime were indistinguishable. To get at the perpetrators of the attack of 2001, Saddam had to be expelled, even though his regime was secular and quite unlike the Islamists who piloted the planes. Anyone with a basic knowledge of the realities of the Middle East could have told him this.
But no: to Blair “these people” were all the same. “This kind of threat” had to be met with war. Has there ever been a more blatant example of the orientalist incapacity to make distinctions?
Christopher Walker
London W14
Adrian Hamilton (“It was the war itself which was wrong”, 29 January) misunderstands the primary motivation which drove Bush and Blair, an axis of extremism if ever there was one, to lay waste to Iraq. They staged a religious and ethnic war triggered initially, as Blair has said, by the attack in 2001 on two supreme symbols of the Christian West.
In their quest to retaliate against the Muslim Arab aggressor, they needed a soft and strategically unimportant target, and Iraq, led by a dispensable despot, fitted the bill perfectly. Regime change, his genocidal attacks on the Kurds and others, and the remote possibility that he might be holding or developing weapons of mass destruction were all chaff scattered to distract attention from their private crusade.
This explains why they were completely uninterested in what happened to Iraqis once their country had been blitzed. Why would you want to help the infidel when what he needed was to be punished?
Jeremy Walker
London WC1
When Blair says that “if it was up to him” (thank God it isn’t) we should consider repeating the Iraq venture with Iran. After all that has happened in Iraq and Afghanistan, that he can seriously suggest such a thing is extraordinary. Does he have no idea of logistics?
One of the problems in Iraq and Afghanistan has been the lack of troops. Where does he think the troops are to come from to invade and occupy a much larger and powerful country such as Iran? Unless he is suggesting merely “surgical strikes”, in which case he wants to be very sure they are not going to be counter-productive.
What I find most insufferable is the incredibly arrogant assumption that the Anglo-Saxon world has a monopoly of righteousness and good government and that gives them the right to police and mould the world in their image. When all else fails, the only people with the right to take military action are the UN, whatever their faults.
Peter Giles
Whitchurch, Shropshire
Mr Blair believes Iran must be stopped at all costs from developing nuclear weapons. But again, like his failure to anticipate the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq, he has failed to consider what could occur after an air campaign against the Iranian nuclear facilities. It is doubtful that with the conventional munitions now available such a campaign would achieve its objective . Even if it did, the outrage in Iran would require the government to respond against the attackers.
Iran has a population of 70 million-plus, with a million young men turning 18 every year. Their easiest response would be a conventional land war against the US and Nato forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, which lack the heavy armour and artillery required to fight such a war.
The US is taking months to raise the 30,000 extra troops for the Afghan surge. Where would they find the soldiers to fight a new war. A draft? The last war of this nature between Iraq and Iran caused a million deaths. How many more people will have to die before Blair realises he is out of his depth?
George D Lewis
Brackley, Northamptonshire
The spectre of the late Dr David Kelly hung over the Chilcot Inquiry like Banquo’s ghost during the appearance of Tony Blair. What a pity the former PM was not subjected to the confrontational, sometimes offensive, questioning Dr Kelly suffered when he appeared before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee in July 2003. Later, Dr Kelly privately described his tormentor-in-chief, Andrew MacKinlay MP, as an “utter bastard”.
If the fat-cat superannuated members of Chilcot had used similar tactics with Blair, the odious arrogance he displayed might have wilted. The spectacle of Blair being publicly humiliated in front of the cameras, as Dr Kelly was, would have been worth every penny of the millions of pounds this toothless inquiry is costing.
Roger Paine
Hellingly, East Sussex
Throughout questioning by Sir Roderic Lyne, Tony Blair kept saying that resolution 1441 clearly allowed the invasion of Iraq. At no point did Sir Roderick challenge this or ask Mr Blair why his unequivocal view was not supported by Lord Goldsmith, Michael Wood, Elizabeth Wilmshurst, the legal experts in Russia, France, and Germany and nearly all international lawyers.
The question of the legality of the war is the only important issue and Blair was let off the hook. They might as well terminate the inquiry now.
John Rogers
London SW16
Taxing time with online tax return
Having forgotten to complete my tax return by the due date, I had to do it online. But this is impossible without having to resort to the HMRC phone helpline. Why resort to the phone? Because the computer program is hopelessly misleading, my phone helpers told me.
As a retired teacher/lecturer with pensions from the Teachers’ Pensions Authority in Darlington and the London Pensions Fund Authority, when I was requested to, “Please give details of the payers and the amounts received from each. And also the amount of tax taken by each”, I did so.
“ERROR X”, in bright red lettering flashed on my screen, accompanied by the surreal admonition, also in red: ” ‘Please give details of the payers … can only contain alpha, numeric and the following special characters: ‘( ) * , – . / & @ £. The enter (or return) key located on your keyboard is not accepted. Please amend’.”
Had the computer gone mad? So I tried again, amending my entry slightly. No change; same bizarre instructions. My phone helpers were embarrassed. What I should have done was submit everything in lower case, with no gaps between words or amounts. Could the proverbial chimpanzee write Shakespeare before working this out?
Bob Knowles
London SW15
Israel’s wall is to annex land
Alan Halibard asks why Israel should not be allowed to build a security wall while America is allowed to build a much longer one along the Mexican border (letters, 23 January).
Could it have escaped his attention that Israel’s West Bank wall cuts off huge chunks of Palestinian territory, and slices many towns and farms in half? Israel may have a right to build a wall on its own territory, but this is a simple attempt to annex land under the guise of security.
David Simmonds
Epping, Essex
That’s rich
I see that a government-backed study shows that the richest 10 per cent of the population have 100 times as much wealth as the poorest 10 per cent. That is an indictment of the New Labour years but it won’t be helped at all by electing a government directly comprised of members of the richest 10 per cent.
keith Flett
London N17
Sue’s still with us
In an otherwise admirable article on ageism in the BBC, Jane Thynne in her radio column (28 January) claims I was “bundled off the Today programme when only 61″. This came as some surprise. I was not bundled off or even given a gentle shove. It was entirely my decision to leave, and I did so with much regret, but nearly 18 years of getting up at 3am were quite enough for me, and possibly for listeners. And I am still there, on Radio 4, with The Reunion and A Good Read.
Sue MacGregor
London NW1
Banking on the Co-op
Non-casino banks already exist (letters, 25 January). I am with the Co-operative Bank, and there are others such as the Triodos Bank. These banks are well-known for their ethical (non-casino) investment policies. And as for them costing more, my experience shows this to be the opposite. I left a “casino bank” because I was fed up with their arbitrary bank charges; at the Co-op, I got a current account which paid interest. I would never go back to a so-called high street bank.
Ian K Watson
CARLISLE
And that’s the truth
Peter Forbes refers to the title of Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini’s book, What Darwin got wrong (Arts & Books, 29 January) as “inflammatory and tendentious”. As all scientists, in fact all human beings, get something wrong, the title alone can not fail to have an ounce of truth, as Darwin, I suspect, would agree.
Thomas Merriam
Basingstoke, Hampshire
No TV God slot
In my 37 years as a parish priest, I regularly received TV licence demands for the church (letters, 29 January). My practice was to seize the thickest felt pen at my disposal with which to print on the incoming missive, in large letters, “St Mary’s/St John’s/St Paul’s Church is a building dedicated to the worship of Almighty God. Television sets are not used for this purpose”. I would then post it back, minus a stamp.
Simon Parkinson
Dewsbury, West Yorkshire

Times:

Sir, All five members of the Chilcot inquiry served or were lauded by Tony Blair when he was Prime Minister (“Links between Tony Blair and panel members”, Jan 29). This made cause for them to demonstrate their current, total independence by pursuing him in a ruthless and professional fashion. They failed (“Unrepentant, unforgiven, Blair says ‘I’d do it again’”, Jan 30).
The time has come for the inquiry to adopt the robust questioning technique of parliamentary select committees, which require of witnesses that questions posed are answered. Then Mr Blair could not have avoided, for instance, declaring precisely the origin of his categorical statement to the House of Commons that a weapons of mass destruction attack by Saddam could start in 45 minutes.
Their failure exemplifies the need for the inquiry to recall Mr Blair, Alastair Campbell and Lord Goldsmith to appear together to settle the clash of answers they rendered to critical questions and before Gordon Brown appears.
Sir Kenneth Warren
Chairman, Select Committee on Trade and Industry, 1983-92
Sir, The generally easy ride afforded to Mr Blair at the Chilcot inquiry is further evidence, if any were needed, that the inquiry should have been presided over by a High Court judge, assisted by assessors and, in particular, the inquiry’s own counsel.
P. M. Hart
Stevington, Beds
Sir, You point out in your leading article (“The 2010 Question”, Jan 30) that the purpose of the Chilcot inquiry is to establish what lessons can be learnt from the invasion by this country of Iraq. It is irrelevant whether Mr Blair, Lord Goldsmith and perhaps others are believed as they explain their reasons for the decisions they took.
Much more important is to address the scenario that a British prime minister and some of his key advisers are leant on by the administration of another country with a different agenda, and decide to accede to that pressure. The question that the Chilcot inquiry must address is what constitutional and administrative checks and balances should there be to ensure that such a decision, and the true reasons for it, are fully debated by Parliament before this country is committed to the pre-emptive invasion of another sovereign state, to the possible disquiet of the majority of our citizens.
Chris Todhunter
Taynuilt, Argyll

Sir, National infrastructure is vital to the future of this country (“Quango tango”, leading article and report, Jan 28). The Infrastructure Planning Commission expects to be examining some 40 national infrastructure projects in the coming year.
We are actively engaged in a steadily growing list of applications, already numbering 18 and including proposals for nuclear power stations, power lines, wind farms, and waste combustion plants. We are already working with local authorities, developers, objectors and others to make sure that everyone understands how these proposals will be examined and decided, and to encourage constructive dialogue and consultation.
The previous regime for national infrastructure planning had failed, creating uncertainty and delay that were blighting communities and undermining the confidence of investors. In contrast, the IPC will deliver faster and fairer decisions.
In a few months we have built a highly effective and efficient organisation — on time, on budget — that is fully committed with an expanding work programme of important national infrastructure projects. We will not be distracted from this vital task.
Sir Michael Pitt
Chairman, Infrastructure Planning Commission

Thomas Hope wrote:
Michael said “The previous regime for national infrastructure planning had failed”. I assume this is because of poor results.
Then he said “In a few months we have built a highly effective and efficient organisation — on time, on budget”
How on Earth can he claim to have an effective and efficient organisation until it has proven to be so by successful results? A bit premature, surely.
January 31, 2010 11:26 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Peter Cressall wrote:
The IPC will deliver fairer decisions. Is this “fairer” as in “fairer taxes?” i.e. the more you have, the more you can expect to suffer?
January 31, 2010 6:37 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Bill Duffay wrote:
Come on: “encourage constructive dialogue and consultation”; “The previous regime … had failed, creating uncertainty and delay that were blighting communities”.
This isn’t really true, is it. This commission is about imposing planning on local people who would otherwise have avenues for complaint. Nimbys get a bad press, but that’s no reason just to dump major infrastructure projects of people without their being allowed a proper say.
January 31, 2010 6:35 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Steve Blunt wrote:
If it quacks like a Quango, it probably deserves appropriate treatment.
January 31, 2010 6:27 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Arthur Nowr wrote:
It is admirable that Sir Michael is working so hard on our behalves but why are there only 18 infrastructure applications? Surely we need more new infrastructure than that?

Sir, Britain’s status and prestige are not enhanced by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) selling its “family silver” (“Embassies for sale”, letter, Jan 28). Since the 1980s, when the Treasury permitted the proceeds of such sales to be “recycled” within the FCO and not diverted to consolidated funds, there has been an added Treasury impetus for it to continue.
Savings are at best illusory and fail to offset what were appreciating assets. Sadly, much of the money goes into recurrent expenditure and replacing expensive and continual IT upgrades.
Vernon Scarborough
Copthorne, W Sussex

Peter Cressall wrote:
Interesting, Dave Chorley. A liberal hotbed of fools, a fool of a liberal hotbed, a foolish hotbed of liberals: they all seem to make sense.
January 31, 2010 7:07 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Dave Chorley wrote:
Surely the FCO is a hotbed of liberal fools which sees no value in its assets.

Sir, The BBC spent £250,000 constructing a new studio for Euro 2008 because its allocated space did not have “an editorially suitable camera shot” of Vienna (report, Jan 29).
Had they asked, they could have used my scenic balcony for a fiver.
Dr John Doherty
Vienna

Sir, Having read the acronyms regarding BOAC (letters, Jan 22, 25 and 26), I should like to put in a good word for it. We were living in Nigeria and throughout the 1960s when our children, and those of many friends, were in boarding school in the UK, BOAC staff looked after the children superbly, at no extra charge. They escorted both my son and daughter either to their respective railway station or to a taxi. They then telephoned the guardian at the children’s destination to say that they were on their way and the expected arrival time. It was a great comfort to parents.
One could also always get en-route information from the nearest BOAC office. The airline often had so many children on board that extra staff were employed and the planes were nicknamed, by BOAC, “the Lollipop Specials”.
Susan Pickering
Alton, Hants

Janet Denning wrote:
even after BOAC became BA they gave all children on board goody bags to keep them amused. From amongst my children’s loot I snaffled a pack of mini playing cards, far too good a prize for a young child. I still find them handy, now it’s 25+ yrs on and we’re stacked up waiting to land.
January 31, 2010 11:43 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Thomas Hope wrote:
Also remember the kids being counted off the BOAC VC-10’s, down the steps, onto the tarmac, all with labels attached, to have a great schools holiday in Borneo especially in jungle games organised by the Ghurkas.
January 31, 2010 11:36 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Peter Cressall wrote:
Ah! Halcyon days before competition forced costs down!
January 31, 2010 6:47 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Peter Wade wrote:
I went to Singapore in 1961 with BOAC and allthe children were enrolled inthe Junior Jet club.

We all had a metal badge.I am sure I still have it somewhere.

They would invite us to film shows. We loved it.

About 20 years later I met someone who had also gone abroad as a child and he was similarly a member.

Perhaps I should get in touch with former members on Facebook

Sir, To describe a plate of stir-fried greens as “fibrous and nutritious” is a contradiction (Giles Coren, Times Magazine, Jan 23). The greens described consist mostly of water.
The dietary fibre component (cellulose) provides bulk and helps to make one feel full after eating but it is neither digested nor absorbed through the gut and so eventually is ejected unchanged from the alimentary canal having provided no nutrition whatsoever except, possibly, for the traces of cooking oil sticking to the outside.
Tom Inglis
Crieff, Perthshire
Sir, “No alcohol, no salt, no boiling, frying, grilling or roasting, no eating after dark . . . but you could live to be 120” (Giles Coren, Cover feature, Times Magazine, Jan 30).
No you won’t. It will just seem like it.
Sue Barnard
Altrincham, Cheshire

Telegraph:

SIR – If Tony Blair thinks we are safer without Saddam Hussein, why is this country now on the second-highest security level?
J. G. Cridlan
Brough, East Yorkshire
 
SIR – Mr Blair expressed “deep sorrow” for Britain’s role in the slave trade and apologised for the Irish potato famine.
Which future Prime Minister will apologise for the innocent deaths brought about by Mr Blair’s decision to go to war against Iraq?
John McNeil
Letchworth Garden City, Hertfordshire
SIR – Our domestic democracy and the democratic international community are underpinned by the rule of law. The evidence given in the Chilcot Inquiry has revealed that Tony Blair and Jack Straw paid little heed to it.
A chilling example of where that leads is that troops were sent under-equipped to Iraq because Mr Blair did not want the world to find out about his and George Bush’s illegal war until it was too late.
Mr Blair, from his evidence on Friday, did not even regret the loss of life caused by that piece of political expediency.
If Mr Blair, Mr Straw et al are not indicted for war crimes, we send a signal to those in power, of whatever political hue, that they can ignore the rule of law with impunity, and our international court will be seen as a tame puppet of the West.
Michael Turner QC
London WC2
SIR – Mr Blair repeatedly referred to the threat of Iran and “the 2010 question”. I was chilled by the real 2010 question: would we now be at war with Iran if this man had not been forced to resign?
Peter Steadman
Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire
SIR – In a speech in May 1997, Mr Blair said: “Mine is the first generation able to contemplate the possibility that we may live our entire lives without going to war or sending our children to war.”
Countless deaths later, Mr Blair used his appearance at the Chilcot Inquiry to make clear that he also favoured military action against Iran. He mentioned Iran no less that 58 times. “Any possibility of WMD should be stopped,” he said. “Iran is in a very similar situation [to Iraq], which is why these lessons are so important.”
Once again, the Middle East peace envoy has shown his thirst for war.
Stefan Simanowitz
London NW3
SIR – I am grateful to Mr Blair for taking up politics as a profession. With his inventiveness and conviction he might have ventured into engineering.
Had he done, I would think twice about crossing a bridge, flying in an aircraft or even riding a bicycle of his design.
Euan Maclean
London SW1
Keeping council tax down
SIR – As leaders of Conservative local authorities, we are sick of hearing Labour ministers crowing about how they have helped keep council tax down this year.
Readers should be aware that we have managed to keep taxes low in our authorities despite the efforts of John Denham and his department.
Labour red tape has led to the unprecedented council tax increases since 1997.
The average increase is so low this year through a combination of two factors. First, Conservative authorities have been committed, as always, to efficient and low-cost public services. Second, with every passing year, more high-tax Labour councils are failing at the ballot box.
Cllr David Burbage
Leader, Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead
Cllr Edward Lister
Leader, London Borough of Wandsworth
Cllr Stephen Greenhalgh
Leader, London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham
Cllr Stephen Baines
Leader, Calderdale Council
Cllr Barry Dare
Leader, Gloucestershire County Council
Cllr Daniel Cox
Leader, Norfolk County Council
Cllr Jim Harker
Leader, Northamptonshire County Council
Cllr David Parsons
Leader of Leicestershire County Council
Cllr Roger Evans
Leader of the Conservatives, London Assembly
Cllr Bob Blackman
Deputy Leader, London Borough of Brent
Cllr Lynne Hillan
Leader, London Borough of Barnet
Cllr Ken Maddock
Leader, Somerset County Council
Cllr David Ashton
Leader, London Borough of Harrow
Cllr Kevin Carroll
Leader, Conservatives on Torbay Council
Cllr Merrick Cockell
Chairman, London Councils and Leader, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea
Cllr Teresa O’Neill
Leader, London Borough of Bexley
Cllr Peter Thompson
Leader, London Borough of Hounslow
Cllr Francine Haeberling
Leader, Bath and North East Somerset Council
Cllr Michael Rye
Leader, London Borough of Enfield
Cllr Keith Mitchell
Leader, Oxfordshire County Council
Cllr Mike Fisher
Leader, London Borough of Croydon
Cllr David Williams
Leader, London Borough of Merton
Cllr John Fuller
Leader, South Norfolk Council
Cllr David Lee
Leader Wokingham Borough Council
Cllr Matthew Colledge
Leader, Trafford Council
Cllr Mary Mears
Leader, Brighton & Hove City Council
Cllr Paul James
Leader, Gloucester City Council
Cllr John Furey
Leader, Runnymede Borough Council
Cllr Andy Mercer
Leader, East Northamptonshire Council
Cllr Robert Vines
Leader, Tewkesbury Borough Council
Cllr Lynden Stowe
Leader, Cotswold District Council
Cllr Nick Daubney
Leader, King’s Lynn & West Norfolk Borough Council
Cllr Harvey Siggs
Leader, Mendip District Council
Cllr Peter Amos
Leader, Forest of Dean District Council
Cllr William Nunn
Leader, Breckland Council
Van Gogh crush
SIR – Van Gogh’s letters and colours are on show in an exhibition at the Royal Academy, London, which my husband and I paid £24 to view.
The gallery was packed. People bumped and tumbled into each. Queues jostled to read the letters, making observation of any drawings and landscapes impossible.
Gillian Hesketh
Little Thornton, Lancashire
Gilbertian brakes
SIR – The current revival of Gilbert and Sullivan is welcome news to many. Even more pleasing is the possibility that Opera North is to revive Utopia Limited, the penultimate Savoy opera (Rupert Christiansen, Features, January 28).
Its conclusion that government by party brings “sickness in plenty, endless lawsuits, crowded jails, interminable confusion in the Army and Navy, and, in short, general and unexampled prosperity!” would serve as a well-timed touch of the brake for those anticipating miracles after the general election.
Richard Long
Bromsberrow Heath, Herefordshire
The uses of grumpiness
SIR – There may be a simpler explanation than the Harvard research team’s as to why some old people appear grumpy but others do not (report, January 30).
As someone at times accused of being a Victor Meldrew, I am reluctant to discount the flattering theory that this trait is due to being higher up the evolutionary ladder than a number of my fellows – like chimpanzees compared to bonobos.
It seems more likely to me that the syndrome is something nature uses to help reconcile elderly people to what is ahead of them. Those resentfully aware that they have become misfits in a rapidly changing world can view the prospect of leaving it with a measure of relief.
Swift’s epitaph – “He has gone where fierce indignation can no longer lacerate his heart” – leaves no room for doubt that it was in this frame of mind that the author of Gulliver’s Travels met his end.
Sir Rivers Carew Bart
Girton, Cambridgeshire
If presidents survive affairs, why shouldn’t John Terry?
SIR – My French friends are amazed at cries to relieve John Terry of the England captaincy. The modern world has tolerated the dalliances of presidents Mitterrand, Clinton and Berlusconi and even of Prince Charles. None was forced to resign.
Vincent Sinnott
St Raphael, Var, France
SIR – John Terry’s extramarital affair is a matter of public interest, because of his captaincy of the England national team.
He should do the honourable thing and resign before he brings the “beautiful game” into further disrepute.
Professor Ian Blackshaw
International Sports Law Centre
The Hague, The Netherlands

Irish Times:

Payments to lawyers
Madam, – The Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern is reported to be “extremely concerned” over the “escalating costs” of the Criminal Legal Aid Scheme (Home News, January 27th).
On the same page, you publish a list of highest earning solicitors and barristers with reference to payments under the Scheme. Those payments, for 2009, include VAT at a rate of 21.5 per cent.
The total cost of the Legal Aid Scheme for the calendar year 2009, including VAT, is €57.5 million. Rates were significantly reduced in early 2009, but the increased cost of the scheme to the taxpayer is simply and solely a product of more people being prosecuted for serious offences.
A functioning criminal justice system is an essential part of a democracy, and Ireland is constitutionally and internationally obliged to make provision for the payment from the public purse of legal fees for those persons accused of serious offences who are not in a position to discharge their own legal costs. Seen in the context of the expense of the Criminal Justice System as a whole, which would include the Garda Síochána, the Irish Prison Service, the office of the DPP and the Courts Service, the scheme is seen for what it is, a low cost and vital part of administration of justice. Our system works well, has exceptionally low administrative costs, and provides excellent value for money. Meanwhile a huge new Criminal Courts Complex had opened in Dublin in respect of which the monthly rental payable over a 25-year-lease is believed to be €1.6 million.
It is worthy of note that while quite clearly substantial payments are made out to various individual solicitors on your list, every single one of those solicitors operates a small business, with concomitant overheads, often employing significant numbers of people, and has already had to absorb substantial pay cuts over the last 15 months.
In Business Today of the same edition you report that a panel of solicitors has been assembled to provide legal services to Nama. Payments to lawyers on the panel will total €2.64 billion over 10 years. Mr Ahern is a member of the Government that has created Nama and effectively underwritten a blank cheque, at the taxpayers’ expense, for one of the least politically popular causes in living memory. It is a matter for your readers whether they adjudge the Nama adventure, or the constitutionally operational criminal justice system, to be better value. – Yours, etc,
ROBERT EAGAR,
DONOUGH MOLLOY,
PETER MULLAN
DARA ROBINSON,
Garrett Sheehan Partners,
Cunningham House,
Francis Street,
Dublin 8.
Church’s role in primary schools
Madam, – Fr Seán McDonagh and Andrew Carvill write separately (January 28th) decrying your supposed campaign to remove the Catholic Church’s influence from our primary school system. In both cases they reference the countless hours volunteered by members of boards of management throughout the country as a reason to maintain the status quo.
Nobody I know of denies that the vast majority of these volunteers have had a positive influence on our education system. But the fact remains that they bring this positive influence under the aegis of an organisation that has actively facilitated the molestation of generations of children.
If they are prepared to volunteer their time and efforts outside of the influence of the Catholic Church then they should be welcomed. Until that time they should be excluded from our schools as a direct consequence of the findings of the Murphy report. – Yours, etc,
JAMES SCULLY-LANE,
Bellevue Lawn,
Delgany,
Co Wicklow.
Madam, – It was mildly entertaining to read the opinions of the several Catholic priests (Opinion Letters, January 28th) complaining of bias in the recent Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI survey on the future of the primary school system, considering that all these opinions were from leaders of an organisation which has a significant vested interest in maintaining the status quo.
Unfortunately, none chose to deal with the central issue of whether it is appropriate for the patronage system to continue to exist in the first place.
It cannot be denied that the patronage system provides a highly convenient forum for the propagation of religious beliefs to our children; nor that the churches are fully entitled to express their opinion on maintaining the system. Nevertheless, if taxpayers’ money were to be used to fund religious instruction in any other context, there would be a national outcry.
Lest this survey appear to be part of “a campaign to push the Catholic church out of education”, I would point out we already have two forums for providing religious instruction: the home and the church. If these together are insufficient, then either parents or church leaders are not living up to their professed beliefs. – Is mise,
NICK HILLIARD,
De Courcey Square,
Glasnevin,
Dublin 9
.
Single subsidy for married people
Madam, – Leo Varadkar is most likely the first politician to see that single people subsidise married households (Home News, January 28th). I would also add that single childless people subsidise the children of others. If Nama-style assistance comes in for those unable to pay mortgages, tenants will then subsidise those with homes.
As usual, wealth flows in the direction of those who already have so much. – Yours, etc,
Dr FLORENCE CRAVEN,
Trinity College Dublin,
Dublin 2.
Madam, – I was shocked by Deputy Leo Varadkar’s derogatory comments in the Dáil about “stay-at-home wives”. According to him, they spend the “day on the golf course or eating lunch or whatever”. Clearly, Deputy Varadkar doesn’t realise that for many women, being a wife and a mother is a full-time job. Looking after children and a household can be every bit as demanding as working in an office or indeed in the Dáil. Mr Varadkar’s view of stay-at- home wives as ladies who lunch is ignorant at best, and sexist at worst. – Yours, etc,
JANE DIGNAM,
Nuns Cross,
Ashford,
Co Wicklow.
Flaws in ’smart’ green economy
Madam, – Tom Bruton and his colleagues in the Irish Bioenergy Association (January 28th) should be commended for seeking opportunities to promote Irish participation in the biofuels sector, but not at the expense of taxpayers and consumers.
The cost of the Biofuels Obligation Scheme to come into force later this year will be borne by consumers. It makes sense to meet our EU obligation to ensure a minimum share of renewables in transport fuels as cheaply as possible. The tropics can convert sunlight to energy more efficiently than we can in our cold northern climate. In Ireland, you would have to plant 24 hectares with rapeseed just to power one bus for a year, and the greenhouse gas savings are negligible if the indirect land use change effects are taken into account. Thus it makes sense to rely on cheaper imported biofuels which provide greater reductions in greenhouse gas emissions to meet our biofuel obligation until electric cars (powered by renewable wind energy) become more widespread. Mr Bruton’s call for a Nama for biofuel production whereby the State would pay over the odds for the certificates associated with the production of domestic biofuel should be firmly rejected. – Yours, etc,
ALAN MATTHEWS,
Professor of European Agricultural Policy,
Trinity College Dublin,
Dublin 2.
Controversy over Slane bypass
Madam, – As I hail from Co Louth and live in Dublin, I have a vested interest in the construction of any bypass that might make the journey easier. However, I share the disappointment of Hugh McFadden (January 29th) at the decision to place the bypass east of Slane village, closer than may be necessary to one of only two Unesco world heritage sites in the country.
In assessing the price of convenience, it might be worthwhile to reflect on what the late Douglas Adams had to say on the subject: “Bypasses are devices that allow some people to dash from point A to point B very fast while other people dash from point B to point A very fast. People living at point C, being a point directly in between, are often given to wonder what’s so great about point A that so many people from point B are so keen to get there, and what’s so great about point B that so many people from point A are so keen to get there. They often wish that people would just once and for all work out where the hell they wanted to be.” – Yours, etc,
DAVID ROBINSON,
Chelmsford Road,
Ranelagh, Dublin 6.
Crisis for archives?
A chara, – Paul Gorry (January 11th) asserts that the shameful loss of the Public Records Office of Ireland in 1922, when the Four Courts was shelled, “was perpetrated by the founders of the State”. He may be literally correct but those who occupied the Four Courts share the responsibility.
Winston Churchill is reputed to have said at the time, “Better a State without an Archive than an Archive without a State”. – Is mise,
ANTHONY JORDAN,
Gilford Road, Dublin 4.
History of teaching
Madam, – I am currently writing a history of teaching in Ireland. I am anxious to speak with and/or interview working teachers and am particularly interested to meet those who have retired. This work will result, after publication, in the establishment of a national research archive into the history of teaching in Ireland based at Dublin City University.
I can be contacted at brendan.walsh@dcu.ie, tel: 01-7007118, or at the address below. – Yours, etc,
Dr BRENDAN WALSH,
Lecturer,
School of Education Studies,
Dublin City University,
Collins Avenue,
Dublin 9.
Rocking and trying to roll home
Madam, – On January 20th I fulfilled a longed for visit to the show called We Will Rock You at the newly renovated O2 theatre in Dublin.
I’m 73 years young and travelled by bus and Luas.
Then came delays. Teething troubles with the first night electric system of the theatre meant two delays and carried the time to shortly before 11pm.
Instead of being able to relax and accept these setbacks, I had to exit at high speed before the cast had left the stage. Why? Because my bus to Shankill runs only until 11.20pm and should I have arrived at D’Olier Street one minute later than I did, I’d have been stranded some 16 kilometres from home.
I can’t describe the panic I experienced waiting for the Luas to take me back from the O2 to the city centre and then almost running the final trip from the Luas stop to the nearest bus stop. I was probably one of hundreds in the same predicament.
Why, oh why can’t we have an all-night public transport system? Dublin isn’t tiny – I have been to a much smaller city in Poland – Krakow – where the trams go all night and that encourages me to back to enjoy being a tourist into the early hours of a Polish night.
How many restaurants and places of entertainment would thrive if they could have people around their premises towards the end of every evening?
Wake up Dublin and demand the availability of public transport 24 hours a day. Or do you all want to become stay-at-home TV watchers? – Yours, etc,
JOE PHILLIPS,
Shrewsbury Road,
Dublin 18.
Counting ‘ghost’ estates
Madam, – The article “621 ‘ghost estates’ built across State” (Home News, January 27th), and other recent print media reports fail to pick up on an important distinction between total vacant stock and the excess of vacant stock over normal levels. The latter provides a much clearer picture of the amount of housing that is available for occupation – a more important consideration from the point of view of trying to match oversupply of housing with rising social housing need.
The figures quoted from Minister of State, Michael Finneran, were an estimate of the “excess” stock of vacant units over what would be the “normal” level. This estimate was sourced through a report prepared for the Department of the Environment, and put the figure for the “excess” stock over normal at between 122,000 and 147,000 (excluding abandoned properties).
The report also provided an estimate for the total stock of empty dwellings at June 2009 (excluding abandoned properties) of between 228,000 and 253,000, depending on our assumptions.
The recent study by the National Institute for Regional and Spatial Analysis (NIRSA) uses a similar methodology to the one used in the preparation of the report for the Department of the Environment, but the NIRSA estimate also includes abandoned properties. – Yours, etc,
SEAN DUNNE,
Press Office, Department of the Environment,
Custom House, Dublin 1.

Well I must be off

best wishes John

Rummaging

Rummaging 23 January 2010

I am rummaging through my drawer, mainly looking for a Euro coin, one will do for it is borne in upon me that I will need one when we go to Dublin on Friday, we will need it for the luggage cart at the airport. I haven’t looked in this old drawer for ages, everything that does not have a place gets shoved in here, including my left over foreign coins.
A crisp clean newly minted twenty Franc note appears, part of history now since they joined the Euro, and probably worthless. Keys long forgotten keys I have no idea what they are or were supposed to unlock. They gleam at me all shiny metal, so cold. Bits of wire to connect old long forgotten electronic things to other old forgotten electronic things. Receipts, thirteen years old, I must be mad keeping thirteen year old receipts, but I can still remember the restaurant we went to on that day, my mind drifts back.
But what is this I spot shyly hiding at the bottom of the drawer, a Euro coin, an Irish one at that, well done I do feel pleased I can have my luggage cart at the airport, after all, for I am sure that a pound coin won’t do, or was that France?
An old computer a Psion, I bought this years ago a handheld as they would call it nowadays, only black and white screen but the battery used to last months. A spectacle case and another and another, do I really buy a new pair of glasses every two years, I suppose I do, Some US Dollars, Canadian Dollars, Czech Florins, proudly showing the Czech Republic sign, they had not long split from Slovakia, and new coins had to be minted. More French francs the Republic looking beautiful but icy cool. Dutch Gulders German Marks, Belgian Francs, a Russian Rouble, Italian Lira a 500 Lira coin so not worth very much then, and several whom I cannot immediately identify, and a farthing.
A farthing dated 1947, what was it again, ah yes a quarter of a penny. The was twelve pennies to a shilling and twenty shillings to an old pound, so they were 240 pennies to a pound and therefore 960 farthings to a pound. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farthing_%28British_coin%29
Just an old copper one the early one’s 13th Cent were silver. I expect a pound is now worth what a farthing used to be. How our currency has been debased, I can remember when a pound was real money, ah the dead dear old days.
And right at the bottom some Euros the notes all crisp and clean, about €30 and some change, well that’s about £20 ish and will pay for our taxi fare from the airport, or something. Don’t think it will stretch to a meal though Dublin was very expensive when we last went, it was for Mary’s birthday, and despite the recession, which seem to have hit Ireland particularity hard, I don’t think it will have become all that cheaper. We shall see on the day.

Postcards

Andalucia, Spain

Carisbrooke Castle, Isle of Wight, England

Osborne House, Isle of Wight, England

Portrait of Queen Victoria, presented in 1846

Yarmouth castle Yarmouth, Norfolk, England

Obituary: Ursula Sedgwick: children’s author and advertising copywriter

Ursula Sedgwick was a woman of formidable energy and intelligence who pioneered children’s cookery books and ran a creative group at the advertising agency J. Walter Thompson at a time when women were still meant to be secretaries or housewives.
Ursula Mary Thomason Beckett was born in Wincanton, Somerset, into a distinguished naval and military family of Huguenot origin. She was the daughter of Major-General Clifford Beckett who took part in the defence of Malta in the Second World War and the niece of the remarkable Captain W. N. T. “Joe” Beckett, who pioneered the use of fast patrol boats in the First World War and was the Navy’s heavyweight boxing champion for a number of years.
She was brought up in the village of Horsington, Somerset, mainly by her grandparents, as her father’s military duties often took her parents abroad. She was educated at the Royal School in Bath and went up to Oxford to read PPE at what became St Anne’s College during the early years of the Second World War, before joining the Women’s Royal Army Corps.
After the war, in typically determined fashion, she got a job as a reporter on The Daily Telegraph, where she met and formed lasting friendships with Colin Welch, Peregrine Worsthorne, Philip Goodhart and Bill Deedes. But she eventually quit because of the paper’s somewhat unhelpful attitude towards women employees, particularly those who might wish to have a family.
In the early 1950s she found a more congenial employer in the advertising agency J. Walter Thompson. The advertising industry in those days was refreshingly open to the idea of employing women in senior roles, particularly in its creative departments. It was a time when women were beginning to storm the male bastions of power, and, along with Jill Firth, Honora Eldridge, Patricia Mann and Madelaine Anderson, Sedgwick helped to establish women firmly on the scene — at least at JWT.
She worked with a number of high-profile clients including Lever Bros, Kodak, Campbell’s Soups and the Decimalisation Board and ended up running a creative group when JWT London was the most influential advertising agency in the country. Forthright and fearless, she created bold advertising campaigns and also confronted the main board of JWT New York on its attitude towards women employees. She was an early champion of the woman as an intelligent consumer.
During her time at JWT London she helped to push through a reform of women’s pension rights that stands to this day. It is a testament to her skills as a negotiator and the esteem in which she was held that JWT stood by her during this process, even though the reform would cost it dearly.
She also managed to find time, normally between 5pm and 8pm on a Sunday, to produce the My Learn to Cook Book, illustrated by her JWT colleague Martin Mayhew. In her usual thorough way Sedgwick got to the heart of her target audience, and all the recipes from baked Alaska to French toast were tried out in her kitchen by her three sons and their friends before they were included in the book.
First published in 1969, the simple recipes, bold illustrations and refreshingly unpatronising tone of the book proved immensely popular, and set the standard for subsequent children’s cook books. She followed this with the equally popular My fun to cook book, again with Mayhew’s illustrations, and Successful Cooking and Baking, this time illustrated by Ron Brown.
The books also did well in the US and were translated into more than 20 languages. They have become classics and, indeed, much loved and battered copies can still be found in many kitchens today. The only issue for the normally astute Sedgwick was her royalty deal, which she believed to be somewhat below par. As she once ruefully observed, the books made a lot of money for the publisher Paul Hamlyn, but not much for her.
The family home in Putney was a remarkable mixture of chaos and order, as Sedgwick struggled to keep her unruly sons under control. The house was a mecca for young people where futile attempts were made to erase all evidence of disorderly behaviour before she got back from the office in the evening.
The charm and easy-going character of Sedgwick’s loyal husband, John, whom she married in 1949 and who ran a flooring company, was a perfect foil to her more rigorous nature. It was a lively household with barbecues and parties attended by such as Jilly Cooper and the Daily Mirror columnist Marjorie Proops.
Sedgwick’s strength of character was tested severely when her eldest son, Adam, was shot and killed during a robbery at his flat in Fulham in 1985. Afterwards, she lent her help to Victim Support, the charity for victims of crime, and was involved in setting up a charity to help bereaved parents, Support after Murder or Manslaughter (Samm).
Latterly Sedgwick became a magistrate and sat on the bench at Horseferry Road for 20 years, a model of common sense and compassion.
She was also involved in the French Protestant Church in Soho Square and was a trustee of Christ’s Hospital School in Horsham, West Sussex.
Her husband John died in 1994 and she is survived by two of their three sons.
Ursula Sedgwick, children’s author and advertising copywriter, was born on November 3, 1922. She died on December 26, 2009, aged 87

Letters:

Guardian:

Robin McKie’s article “Glaciergate was a blunder, but it’s the sceptics who dissemble” (Comment, last week) brings clarity and balance to the debate about climate change science. Yes, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Himalayan glacier projection was wrong, but that doesn’t undermine the rigorous seven-year IPCC process that led to the last assessment report and it certainly doesn’t undermine the compelling evidence of the risks from climate change to food security, water supplies and biodiversity.
The facts are clear: the world is warming, emissions of greenhouse gases are largely to blame and the warming is set to get worse through the 21st century. To ignore that evidence would be foolhardy in the extreme.
Kathy Maskell
Walker Institute for Climate System Research
University of Reading
■ Robin McKie’s article contains some sensible ideas – well, one at least: the abolition or serious rejigging of the IPCC. This latest blunder is not the only one to discredit the organisation. There is also evidence that the summaries for policy-makers do not always reflect the real scientific findings when these fail to support the widely held acceptance of manmade global warming.
It would seem that the sceptics are charged with having to prove that the consensus is wrong. Surely it is for those who hypothesise – in this instance, that there is a direct link between anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and global warming – to demonstrate that it is true.
Michael Robinson
North Creake, Norfolk
■ It must be remembered that global warming is not an issue of opinion. It is solely about the quantum mechanical interactions between radiation and molecules in the atmosphere and the knock-on effects this has. Unlike questions such as the best policy for dealing with the recession, where two sides could in theory ague for all eternity, with climate change only one side can be correct. We just don’t yet know which side is correct. As climate change deniers have failed to produce a peer-reviewed body of evidence pointing to a mechanism that would negate the impact of our emissions, caution would seem to be sensible.
David Coley
Senior research fellow
Centre for Energy and the Environment
School of Physics, Exeter
■ A consequence of the intense public debate surrounding the Copenhagen conference has been a widening of the gap between those who accept that humans are affecting the climate system and those who do not. Yet the case that climate change is real and unwise is unchanged: greenhouse gases in the atmosphere warm the surface zone we inhabit. Measurements show that human industry and agriculture have increased the concentration of carbon dioxide in the air by nearly 40%.
The cost of transforming world society to maintain prosperity and improve equity in a way that is sustainable and reduces the climate risk is a tough challenge. People are key to addressing this challenge, but to act, people must be convinced that there is a problem and that it is a priority.
Professor Chris Rapley
Director of the Science Museum and professor of climate science, University College London, London WC1
■ Despite the well co-ordinated political campaigns by “sceptics” against the IPCC, it remains the most authoritative source of information about the causes and consequences of climate change. Yet every error in its last report is now being portrayed as undermining the evidence that greenhouse gases are driving climate change. Perhaps it is time that the claims of the professional climate change “sceptics” are put to the same test.
Bob Ward
Policy and communications director, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, LSE
London WC2

If the Conservatives are seriously considering reintroducing prison ships (“Prison ship policy shock splits Tories”, News), they clearly have not done their homework. Less than a year ago, the Ministry of Justice announced that it had investigated whether prison ships were a viable way to increase prison capacity and concluded that buying and converting a prison ship would be slower and less cost-effective than expanding existing prisons. Prison ships are also entirely unsuitable for rehabilitating offenders, as HMP Weare, the UK’s last prison ship, demonstrated.
No jurisdiction has successfully built its way out of a prison population crisis and short-term fixes will do nothing to address the underlying causes of the growth in the prison population. Only by significantly reducing the number of people in prison can the Conservatives, should they win the next election, successfully tackle prison overcrowding and end the need for emergency measures.
Jon Collins, campaign director
Criminal Justice Alliance
London SW8
Selling Britain by the pound
In response to Andrew Clark’s view of the Cadbury and similar takeovers of UK-based companies by US companies (Business), Kraft took over the York-based chocolate company Terry’s and closed it down in the UK, despite the fact that Terry’s produced quality products.
Heinz took over the Birmingham-based sauce manufacturer HP and closed it down in the UK. Again, this was a quality product.
Interbrew, now AB InBev, closed down production of Bass at its Burton plant several years ago. It has since been contracted out and has declined from 2 million barrels a year to 100,000 barrels, with the consequent loss of jobs.
Kraft has already admitted that it will centralise some operations, such as customer services and marketing. This is another example of jobs disappearing from the UK. It is a copy of the car industry, where many Japanese model cars are assembled in the UK but the design, and other highly skilled work, is done in Japan.
Tony Watton
Stourbridge
West Midlands
This is no school for scandal
Camden Council was given no opportunity to respond to criticism in “Should parents set up their own state schools? Discuss” (Magazine).While it is true that Camden did not identify the school site mentioned, it is home to existing businesses with leases that do not expire until 2014. It would therefore not have been possible to include a proposal for this site within the timeframe of Camden’s Building Schools for the Future programme, though your article suggests otherwise. I remain optimistic that over time, and possibly with changes to the present guidelines and regulations, a new secondary school will indeed be built south of the Euston Road.
Andrew Mennear
Executive Member for Schools
Camden Town Hall
London WC1
We do good; we’re not do-gooders
I felt I had to respond to your leader “Cameron tells us Britain is broken – but not how to fix it” (Observer Comment). I have been working in the voluntary sector in London for more than 25 years and I was appalled at your lack of understanding of what the sector actually is. One of the “contentious propositions” attributed to the Tory party is their belief that voluntary groups are better at intervention than the state. I have no problems with this statement, but you go on to ask in a subsequent paragraph: “Will it all come from volunteers?”
This is an echoing of the same old misconception about the voluntary sector. We are not and never have been made up of a voluntary work staff.
The sector comprises many limited companies, registered charities and not-for-profit businesses. We have goals, aims and objectives and pay a salaried staff from funds raised through local authorities, trusts, foundations and corporate fundraising. We employ more people than the whole of the telecommunications industry in this country. We are a major employer and offer people a bona-fide career choice.
We do have volunteer programmes that offer people who are not in education, employment or training a chance to explore what the sector is about and to help to deliver services to some of the most vulnerable. What we are not is some loosely based, volunteer-led collection of groups that goes around doing good works amongst the poor (like the lord and lady of the manor).
The voluntary sector reaches the people that other services miss.
David Vandivier, life patron of Voluntary Action
London N1
Home truths from abroad
The British pair “tricked” into a Hungarian jail (News) are “allowed only one hour of exercise a day, one shower a week and one visit by relatives a month”. Just like being in British prison, then.
Owen Wells
Ilkley, West Yorkshire
Is it wrong to seek Mr Right?
So every woman Lori Gottlieb knows “feels panic, occasionally coupled with desperation, if she hits 30 and finds herself unmarried” (“Find Mr Right before age 30 or settle for second best”, News). I can assure her that that was never a problem afflicting me or my female friends. I also differ from Ms Gottlieb – bet she loves that form of address – in that I wouldn’t dare to presume that my personal regrets, half-baked anecdotal observations and flimsy generalisations were in any way representative of modern womankind in all its diversity. Surely feminism isn’t to blame for a woman’s own poor decision-making and her inability to decide whether a man is “good enough” for her.
Farah Alkhalisi
Brighton
Homeopathy – what a bargain
Whatever may be said against homeo­pathy (Catherine Bennett, Comment), it does not hospitalise a million patients a year from the side-effects of so called “evidence-based” medicine at an annual cost of £2bn to the NHS. (Compass think-tank report of spring 2008, the figures confirmed by the then minister of health, Dawn Primarolo.) A mere £4m spent on homeo­pathy, which treats the whole person, not just the symptoms, cannot be seen as other than value for money.
JI Friend (Ms)
Ilfracombe
Devon
Interest rate rises? I can’t wait
In the article “It’s official. We’re out of recession” (News), I was concerned to read the question: “Are tax rises inevitable and should I be braced for interest rates to go up?” Why should I be “braced” for interest rate rises when, like many others, as a saver with no mortgage, I would be delighted with some increase in the current rates?
Rob Catlow
Ellesmere Port

Independent:

Thank you for giving a voice to teenage mothers (“Promiscuous scroungers or loving parents?”, 24 January). I, like thousands of young parents in the 1960s, lost my only child to adoption because I was too vulnerable at this point in my life to protect her. From that moment on, my life lost its purpose, and I have since spoken with countless other natural mothers of adopted people who have suffered the same, who despite their intelligence and abilities have never achieved their potential because of the unconscious acknowledgement that, whatever they do, it will not repair this huge loss. I now know that I would have been a good mother, and that respectable, married adoptive parents is no guarantee of good parenting, or that an adopted person will be brought up with security and kindness.
Heather Powell
Natural Parents Support Group
Birmingham
The single teenage mum gets my vote. She gets pregnant, chooses not to terminate but to have and care for her child, and take on all the unavoidable challenges that that entails. Where’s Dad?
Giovanna Forte
London E2
I agree with Janet Street-Porter that politicians are spineless in their policies on the sale of alcohol (“Only a price rise will stop Britain’s booze culture”, 24 January). But I disagree that the sale of cheap booze is “depriving young women of their dignity”. Young women deprive young women of their dignity. If they insist, against medical advice, on downing units of alcohol that would put a pirate to shame, there will be consequences. In a society that takes the blame out of the hands of those who abuse substances and puts it back into the hands of the substance itself, peer pressure or media influence, it is no surprise that these young women pee in the street or have unprotected sex with a stranger and blame the drink, not themselves. It is not the price of booze that is the problem, but our culture of diminished responsibility.
Laura Wild
via email
If the Iraq inquiry is to have any credibility, it also needs to bring before it members of Her Majesty’s Opposition at the time. We know that Admiral Lord Boyce [formerly chief of the defence staff] has revealed that he set the Government an ultimatum, demanding an “unequivocal” assurance that the invasion would be legal. But we don’t know what Iain Duncan Smith – a former officer in the Scots Guards, then leader of the Opposition – obtained from his legal advisers, and what he thought of the weapons of mass destruction “intelligence”. The late Robin Cook’s resignation speech showed that the Opposition had plenty of areas where they could have taken an anti-war position, and voted _accordingly.
John A Bailey
Seaford, East Sussex
By electing Labour with such a majority, we chose Tony Blair to make important decisions (“‘Good faith’ isn’t usually good enough”, 24 January). If the Prime Minister had merely consulted someone else on whether to go to war in Iraq and followed their advice, would he not have ceased to become the leader of our country? And to argue that he took a decision this big without considering the views of others, and the consequences of his decision, is ludicrous.
It is wise to remember that “those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it”, and consider Neville Chamberlain and his policy of appeasement.
James Coop
Roath, Cardiff
To argue that the short-term damage of “discouraging” social services staff and making them harder to recruit and retain is a price worth paying is appalling (“Fearless talk saves lives”, 24 January). The very children you seek to protect may well be the victims of such a policy.
Lancashire was a “failing” social care authority when I became cabinet member for social services in 2001. We tackled the issues by being frank and open through the mechanisms of local government, not the press or Parliament. That we were successful is a matter of public record. What Doncaster needs to do is not publish the full report into the case of the Edlington boys, but set out how they will tackle the points in the summary, then publish regular public reports. This will empower local people without discouraging hardworking staff .
Chris Cheetham
Skelmersdale, Lancashire
AN Wilson’s article on the jailing of Frances Inglis for the mercy killing of her son is balanced. My dilemma is that, on rare occasions, a patient whom doctors say cannot recover from a vegetative state does exactly that (“Mercy killing is not a crime…”, 24 January). But if my wife or child were in the same situation, I hope I would have the courage of Frances Inglis. If it is felt by those who love a person, in conjunction with medical knowledge, that there is virtually no chance of recovery, then surely it is merciful, and right, to end that life.
Anthony D Baynes
North Yorkshire

Times:

SOCIAL WORKERS will thank Jenni Russell for highlighting their very difficult jobs; they’ve been slated enough — especially since the Baby P case (“This social work by computer system is protecting no one”, Comment, last week).
How I wish my children had been removed from their birth parents’ “care” long before they were: they wouldn’t have had to suffer such horrendous abuse. But I recognise that the social workers involved couldn’t make that decision: the hopelessly inadequate care system didn’t allow for it.
The social worker you interviewed is right: too much emphasis is placed on box-ticking, making things look good on paper at least.
Rachel Green
Exeter, Devon
Law favours parents
The presumption in law is that children are being properly looked after until it is proved that they are not. Apart from cases where there is an imminent threat of danger, no executive state agency has the right to disrupt the parent-child relationship. The standard timetable for most public law cases is 42 weeks and they are very expensive to mount. The authorities are reluctant to bring some cases to court until they have to or until they are sure they will “win”. (No one actually wins.) Substandard parenting, maybe even neglect and abuse, may persist unchecked; and because we are a liberal democracy there is a natural and proper reluctance (which I am loath to disturb) to allow the organs of state to intervene — indeed, they cannot (usually) even enter private premises unless invited.
This is a circle which must somehow be squared. Do we, for example, need an intermediary stage in the courts between emergency protection and (for example) an interim care order? Should social workers have access to private dwellings? We should try to settle a vexed question, the elephant in the room: what is an adequate standard of parenting? It is recognisable when you see it but at the moment it is not defined in terms that would be commonly understood, even by someone who, like me, has sat for more than a decade in the family proceedings court.
Michael Brown JP
Highbridge, Somerset
Money matters
As a (retired) social worker with extensive child protection experience, I know finance is an overwhelming consideration when deciding whether or not to take children into care. Neglectful or abusive parents are more likely to have their children removed if they have only one or two. It is almost impossible to find places, or finance, when the case involves six or seven. This problem is compounded by the lack of foster carers and the use of private care agencies that can charge astronomical fees.
Josette Coburn-Morgan
Potton, Bedfordshire
Stop carping and help
For every one that comes to the public’s attention there are hundreds — even thousands — of families who are guided and coaxed through, as the social worker in your article says. Such work is not for the faint-hearted: I couldn’t do it (I had two stints in children and families in the 1990s) and I’m mature, a former teacher and a mother. All those people who pontificate from the sidelines should try to go out there and do something positive.
The people who do the job get little praise, being damned if they do and damned if they don’t — would you want your siblings/children to do a job that held such physical and mental dangers? Add the target culture and you might as well be trying to do the job with one hand tied behind your back.
Jan Lane
Cheshire

anon nymous wrote:
Social workers do a very hard job.. As in all proffessions some are very good, some are very bad. Unfortunately they are either pressurized by the media to keep children at home or to tae children into care. This paper is as guilty asthe tabloids in this respect.

DOMINIC LAWSON says that “banning the burqa is simply not British” and would betray our principles of freedom and liberty (Comment, last week). The burqa is a symbol of Islam, which, in its worldwide quest to replace our Judaeo-Christian culture, is the source of nearly all modern terrorism. It has no separation of powers, being a political, legal and religious system rolled into one; the penalty for leaving it, or for insulting it, is death. All of it is based on the Koran, and is encapsulated in sharia, a medieval legal system of flagrant gender apartheid.
Men are superior to women because “Allah has chosen them one above the other”, so a woman’s testimony in court is worth half a man’s (Sura: 2:282). Only men can give evidence in rape and adultery cases, which also carry the death penalty. Sura 4.34 says that if a man fears his wife is being disloyal, he should beat her, and Suras 2:229 and 230 allow men to divorce their wives without reason. Hardly very British.
And yes, Mr Lawson, all this is happening in a town near you, and it won’t be long before it invades the appeasing comfort in which our political class lives. For years it castigated as racist anyone who dared to warn about uncontrolled immigration. Now it is sowing another wind by refusing to face up to the reality of Islam.
At least the article was an admirable contribution to the debate we so urgently need to have, especially with the vast majority of mild, non-burqa- wearing Muslims who are our friends, and I thank you for that.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch
Leader, UKIP

Dave Chorley wrote:
A sensible argument against ban it if you don’t like it please go to Europe.
January 31, 2010 4:47 AM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Patricia Thornton wrote:

I wonder if Dominic Lawson would be so supportive if there was a religion that stated followers should not wear any clothes.

I’ve yet to hear of anyone being born wearing a burqa, so why should it be an offence in Britain to wear your birthday suit in public. Does this not betray any principles of freedom and liberty?

You encapsulated the state of play in Britain on one page: (“Public sector faces pay cuts, says Darling”, “Pie man was child safety chief” and “Labour MP’s ‘false’ claim”, News, last week). We read that the Doncaster children’s director was a £103,000 pie man with no relevant experience who is now back to sausages and pizzas, and that the Labour MP David Chaytor claimed £13,000 for a flat he owns but pretended was his daughter’s. Great examples for the 55% of local government staff who take home less than £20,000, together with others in the public services who have to apologise daily for their part in the financial collapse.
David Long
Christchurch, Dorset
Darling should follow his own advice
Alistair Darling is warning public sector workers to follow the example of those in the private sector and accept wage cuts if they want to hang on to their jobs. Since the chancellor is on a public sector salary, I hope he and his colleagues will heed this warning themselves or accept the consequences on May 6.
Keith Clough
Abingdon, Oxfordshire

THE article “Embryos destroyed for ‘minor’ disorders” (News, last week) could cause confusion for those families undergoing or considering IVF treatment with pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). PGD is licensed only for serious medical conditions and not a “routine” procedure.
In 2007, out of nearly 37,000 patients who received fertility treatment, 169 had PGD, fewer than one in 200. People who choose PGD do so because they fear passing on a potentially fatal medical condition. Licensing a clinic/condition for PGD testing is a rigorous process which adheres to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990, and considers evidence from independent peer reviewers and patient groups.
Patients will receive counselling and a consultation with a clinical geneticist. Some may already have children with the condition. Embryos are tested when they are three days old and made up of about eight cells. They are not at the developed stage of the foetus shown in your photograph.
Professor Lisa Jardine
Chair, HFEA (Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority)

Peter Cressall wrote:
PGD, IVF, HFEA, Independant peer reviewers, patient groups. How much is all of this costing us?

Telegraph:

SIR – Christopher Booker (January 24) reports on the unfounded claim by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change about the melting of Himalayan glaciers. This is a clear example of an error by the IPCC. Other errors, less obvious but just as important, have been noted by many, well-qualified dissenting scientists.
These relate to the IPCC’s process of selection and interpretation of the published science, which is biased towards promoting the case for human-induced global warming. In its summary for policy-makers, the IPCC ignores uncertainties and is selective in the science it uses.

How long will it be before the views of dissenting scientists are given proper consideration by policy-makers?
Dr Paul Binns
Edinburgh
SIR – Christopher Booker is persuasive in disputing claims made about man-made global warming.
His argument – that we are making the biggest and most expensive mistake in history by adopting many of the green energy solutions – needs to be properly addressed by politicians and the scientific establishment.
I am sure that we need to conserve energy but I have an uneasy feeling that too many of the figures issued are driven by those with an axe to grind, perhaps in search research funding or though financial involvement with green energy companies.
Malcolm Saunders
Ash, Surrey
SIR – David Shukman, the BBC’s environment correspondent, said on the BBC News on January 25 that Dr Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the IPCC, was “the UN’s top climate scientist”, when he should know that Dr Pachauri is, in fact, a railway engineer.
The BBC must try harder if it is to convince us that it is not a climate change propagandist.
Brian Christley
Abergele, Conwy
SIR – Professor Paul Hardaker of the Royal Meteorological Society complains (Letters, January 24) about supposedly unjust criticism of the Met Office’s forecasts.
Is he aware that on November 28 the Met Office forecast a milder than average winter and its computer model predicted that 2010 will be the warmest year on record?
Edward Huxley
Thorpe, Surrey
SIR – It is risible for Professor Hardaker to state that the Met Office does not have an agenda in support of global warming, when their man in charge, Robert Napier, was formerly the British chief executive of the World Wide Fund for Nature.
Given the Met Office’s £150 million a year taxpayer-funded budget, and a staff of 1500 civil servants, the public deserve a better justification than Professor Hardaker’s excuse for the abysmal failure in its medium range forecasts than a reference to “the challenging nature of weather”.
Perhaps if the Met Office had bothered to look up Accuweather or Weather Action on the internet, it could have done better with its erroneous mild-winter prognostications.
What is really tragic is that this same organisation still persists in promulgating the myth of runaway global warming. If the Met Office possessed any shame, it would stop digging.
Patrick Healy
Carnoustie, Angus
Anti-elitism has undermined education
SIR – The only surprising thing about the national academy for gifted and talented pupils (report, January 24) is that it was the brainchild of a Labour government in the first place.
Labour governments have an instinctive loathing for anything that smacks of encouraging excellence. This is why they took the axe to the grammar school system and would dearly love to get rid of the few remaining – never mind the fact that grammar schools offered a golden opportunity for millions of underprivileged children to reach their full potential.
Yet there are no bigger hypocrites when it comes to education than Labour politicians themselves, who advocate the state system and local schools, while pulling every trick in the book to get their own children into the best state schools – or even private ones.
Robert Readman
Bournemouth, Dorset
SIR – Our anti-elitist Labour Government seems to believe that man, having been created equal, should remain so. Dismantling the national academy for gifted and talented pupils is a predictable consequence of Labour’s relentless drive for equality.
Such an academy is inconsistent with Labour’s enduring scheme to lower examination standards to the level of the worst-performing pupils’ abilities and knowledge. If Labour were put in charge of the high jump at the 2012 Olympics, they would set the bar at 6 inches (sorry, 15.24cm) so that everyone could win.
David Williams
Cheltenham, Gloucestershire
SIR – As someone who has tried for many years, along with colleagues in both independent and state sectors, to build bridges between our two systems, I was sad to read your report on the national academy for gifted and talented pupils.
The Government needs to be spending much more money, not less, building bridges and pathways between both sectors of education. The students, as well as the teachers, have so much to gain from breaking down the apartheid between sectors that was the dominant factor in 20th century schooling.
My ardent hope would be whoever wins the general election this year should start putting some serious money into helping both the state and independent sectors of education to work far more closely together, and to learn from each other. Everyone will gain from this vital exchange.
Dr Anthony Seldon
Master, Wellington College
Crowthorne, Berkshire
Living off the state
SIR – Although I can agree with some of what Jane O’Nions (Letters, January 24) has said, there are, among the large numbers of one-parent families, many teenage girls with children, free houses and benefits, who have never had to work for anything, and for whom this is a lifestyle choice.
You can see them pushing their prams on any high street in Britain – even in prosperous towns with near full employment, such as Tonbridge. They are often accompanied by a feckless male, drawing Jobseeker’s Allowance, which is used to pay for booze and fags, and who will eventually leave, to move on to the next gullible woman.
In days gone by, boys became men quickly. They had role models in the form of a father who worked and of older men while taking part in apprenticeships or in the Armed Forces.
The Government needs to change its policies on tax, benefits and social housing, to stop denigrating marriage and to encourage our young people to take responsibility for their own lives, without expecting the state to do this for them.
Ted Shorter
Tonbridge, Kent
Prison reform naïvety
SIR – The letter from a long list of very eminent people (January 24) echoing the findings of the Commons Justice committee on imprisonment is, on the face of it, very compelling.
As a former detective inspector of the Metropolitan Police, I wonder whether such an august group is being intentionally naïve, particularly when some of them have presided over organisations that have palpably failed to protect the public in recent years.
They should all be aware that rather than locking up more people, we actually incarcerate fewer convicted criminals than any other European democracy, which says everything about our lawless society and their weak attitude to it.
Imprisonment is unpalatable, for the hand-wringing guilt-ridden upper echelons of our society, who are generally well-shielded from the everyday travails of those less fortunate – the people who are subjected to incessant low-level crime and anti social behaviour. Tagging, community-based programmes and other soft-option gimmicks merely endorse the view of the criminal classes and others that the authorities are virtually impotent.
But sentences should be designed not just to punish and protect, but to educate offenders as well as weaning them off drugs and alcohol.
Iain Gordon
Banstead, Surrey
Free gyms
SIR – Oliver Pritchett (Life, January 24) has wittily identified shops as the “new gym”. As a consultant cardiologist, I routinely ask patients in our cardiac clinic what they do for exercise and was initially surprised by the octogenarians who replied with: “the supermarket”.
But consider the following: you can park your car right outside the entrance using your disabled badge. Some kind person will generally help you in. The various trolleys will be superior to your Zimmer frame. The floor is smooth and firm and level with no hazards to trip you up. It is warm and dry with no gusts of wind to blow you over.
If you choose your time, you can notch a quarter of a mile or more in the empty aisles. If you have to pause, the shelf-stackers are generally delighted to have a chat instead of just showing you where the baked beans are kept. Then, afterwards, you can have a cup of coffee with your friends in the supermarket café.
The epidemiological evidence suggests that even modest regular exercise confers cardiovascular benefit. And there are plenty of supermarkets to allow you to go to a different one three times per week. Apparently you do not have to buy anything. At this time of year, the supermarket is already the new gym for some discerning folk.
Dr Michael Petch
Kings Lynn, Norfolk
Britain needs to create more global firms
SIR – For Britain to retain its economic position, it will need to develop new industrial giants. Yet it has created very few industrial titans over the last four decades. Among the world’s 100 largest companies, Britain has only created two new entrants in this period, apart from former government entities or from the break-ups of old conglomerates.
America, meanwhile, has created 12 totally new top-100 global concerns. Over the same period, America lost five companies from the list. But Britain lost a staggering 23 companies, due to insolvency or to international takeovers (mainly the latter).
No global 100 company in America has been directly absorbed by a foreign company during the last three-and-a-half decades. Great harm is being exercised by allowing so many great concerns to be taken over.
Kraft’s purchase of Cadbury is indicative of the problem. We cannot afford to lose further titans, as their profits are fundamental to our economy.
Dr David Hill
Bern, Switzerland
A warning for drivers
SIR – Last week a driver was fined for blowing his nose while stationary in traffic. The police thought that he was not in control of his car. Surely this must set a precedent for those queuing at toll booths. Unless they stop, turn off the engine, and then fumble for change, they should expect to be fined.
Can we now assume that suitable warnings will be displayed at all tolls? In their absence, the Highways Agency must surely also be prosecuted for aiding and abetting such outrageous behaviour.
Allan Collins
Bexley, Kent
Valuable husbands
SIR – I recently applied for a credit card by telephone and was asked the usual questions. It went smoothly until the woman in the call centre came to: “And what’s your income?”
Being 64 and retired for over two years I replied: “I don’t have an income.
She said: “But you must have an income to receive a credit card”. Frustrated, my indignant response was: “I don’t have an income, I have a husband!”
My card duly arrived.
Lizzie Bidwell
Hove, East Sussex
Murray mint
SIR – Does a picture of Andy Murray exist with his mouth closed? If not may I suggest that he starts to suck a mint?
Mark Broadley
Eccleston, Lancashire

Well I must be off

best wishes John

Planting

Planting 30 January 2010

Its so cold, only the promise of losing some weight would get me out jogging, or as I prefer to call it staggering, around Roundhay one a cold and bitter morning. Still its nice to get out and get a bit of fresh air. I am sustained by the Men from the Ministry. But I am harshly reminded that in jogging terms I am at the bottom of the scale, but at least I am on it. I pass a woman jogger in professional running shorts and ankle socks and top with bare midriff exposed in this cold. Snot fair I could never do that, could I? Well not this year perhaps, but someday, perhaps someday I too could brave the cold.
Off with another batch of leaves to the tip, still they are all gone at the front now, except ten large bags, awaiting the men from the Council on Monday morning, I have crammed in as many as I could get and the bags are very heavy. But at least I can feel that some sort of progress is being made. Lots more at the back await sweeping up, revealing bare earth under the great beech tree, I wonder what I can do there? Camomile, now there’s a thought I wonder if there is a shade tolerant variety, the smell would be delightful. And it would be nice to have a green covering instead of just the bare earth.
Mary watches Tony Blair on the Chillcot Inquiry on the Iraq war. Our Tone manages to find an area somewhere between truth and fiction and bluffs, failing to answer the questions with almost consummate ease, I suppose he has being doing that all his life. Curious how shifty all these politicians look under the spotlight, there seems to have been no Cabinet discussion of the war, so much for the Prime Minister being First among equals!. He ends by calling for a war with Iran. And one of his numerous jobs is Middle East peace envoy!
I plant two roses, one pink and the other a mixture of white and yellow, its bitterly cold and not the right time for rose planting roses but they were half price at Homebase, and I have a weakness for roses. I gather a fresh lot of scratches, I can’t work with gardening gloves I have to feel and touch the plants and I get scratched now and again for my pains. I staple the label from the rose pot on to the tub so I’ll know which rose is which if the tubs ever get moved around as they seems to happen now and again.
As an antidote to Tony Blair Joyce Grenfell http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joyce_Grenfell is almost perfect. She sort of restores your faith in simple human nature. Monologues and songs, all with a deceptive simplicity, there must be an awful lot of hard work behind it all. Quite delightful in an old fashioned heart warming sort of way. We have pheasant and salad, and Mary thrashes me at Scrabble.

Postcards

Cowes Isle of Wight. England

Dr Finleys casebook Tannochbrae

Liquorice all sorts Postcrossing from Norway, i quite liked them before but somehow the size of them on this card puts me off!

Sussex windmills, Sussex, England

Yarmouth Harbour, Yarmouth, Norfolk, England

Obituary: Sir Percy Cradock: Ambassador to China, 1978-83

Sir Percy Cradock was the architect of what was arguably Margaret Thatcher’s greatest diplomatic triumph: the 1984 joint declaration with China on the peaceful return in 1997 of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty. As Ambassador to China during the six crucial years leading up to the agreement, he persuaded the Chinese leadership to guarantee the British colony’s capitalist economy, Western legal system and separate political structure for 50 years. He also helped to persuade a sceptical Mrs Thatcher — who came to power in 1979 with strong convictions that Britain should assert its power and values more forcefully on the global stage — that a peaceful end to British rule in Hong Kong was possible only with a negotiated deal. Britain, he later admitted, had virtually no cards in its hands during the long and arduous negotiations: when the lease on the New Territories — 92 per cent of Hong Kong’s land area — expired, Britain would be able to win the best deal for the colony’s future only in co-operation with China.
But Cradock was horrified, after his retirement, at the appointment of Chris Patten (now Lord Patten of Barnes) as Britain’s last governor. He voiced many public warnings that the former Tory minister’s policy of pushing for greater democracy in the final years of British rule would so anger the Chinese that it would wreck the deal he negotiated. He denounced what he saw as a “populist” policy intended to benefit Britain rather than Hong Kong. He attacked Patten’s innovations and style of government and argued that China would — as indeed it did — renege on its promise of a “through train” retaining Hong Kong’s Legislative Council beyond 1997. He gave warning that the Governor’s policies would polarise Hong Kong, forcing it to choose between its present and future masters and accelerating mainland political influence.
The polemics were public, politically divisive and made Cradock a highly controversial figure. He was accused of appeasement, of siding with Beijing and betraying Hong Kong. Critics said he placed realpolitik above democratic values — accusations that he bitterly resented. Much of what he foretold proved true. China was infuriated by Patten’s policies. It did tear up some crucial points in the joint declaration. And it did, in the final months, run a virtually parallel administration in Hong Kong. The final handover was, as a result, a grudging affair with a distinctly cool ceremony. But Cradock was also right in his other prophecy: that Hong Kong would prove such a valuable trading and economic asset that Beijing would not, in the end, destroy its way of life or wreck the main details of the deal that he had negotiated.
The argument cast Cradock as a symbol of old-style diplomacy, whose Foreign Office skills, discretion and pragmatism were denounced by a younger, more egalitarian and ideological generation as patronising and outdated. For he was, in every way, a mandarin’s mandarin. He spent most of his diplomatic life in the Far East. He spoke Mandarin Chinese. He was a forceful, articulate and urbane negotiator. He conducted much of his diplomacy with China in secret, making many unpublicised visits back to China when he was appointed, after his retirement from the Foreign Office, as chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee. He saw little purpose in opening up diplomacy and intelligence to greater public scrutiny.
Percy Cradock was born in 1923, in Byers Green, Co Durham. From Alderman Wraith Grammar School in Spennymoor, he went into the RAF for his National Service and then on to St John’s College, Cambridge, to read English and law, taking a first and becoming president of the university union. (On going down in 1953, he published a history of the Cambridge union between 1815 and 1939. In 1982 his old college created him an honorary Fellow.) He joined the Foreign Office in 1954 and was posted to Malaysia and Hong Kong. He first saw service in mainland China in 1962, returning as counsellor and head of chancery in 1966. It was a turbulent time. Mao Zedong had launched the Cultural Revolution, and China was in turmoil. In August 1967 the Red Guards attacked the British Embassy and burnt it to the ground. No one was killed, but the staff, including Cradock, were beaten and manhandled. When the authorities explained that the violence could stop if the British would only kowtow, Cradock “explained that it could not be done”. He became chargé d’affaires for two years, from 1968-69, when British relations with Beijing were at their nadir. He waged a long and eventually successful struggle to obtain the release of Anthony Grey, a Reuters correspondent held by the Chinese under tight house arrest. It taught him much about the limits on the West’s ability to influence China and the very deep and complex feelings China had about its own history.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article7006909.ece

letters:

Guardian:

Having been single for over two years, I was overjoyed to see the cover story on sharing a bed. There I lay, surveying the vast, lonely expanse of my king-size bed. Therefore I am now seeking takers for either the left or right side, warm feet preferred, no duvet hoggers.
Matt Townsend Cardiff
I think I have solved the puzzle from last week’s cover. I’d put Charlie Brooker at one end (far from Richard Madeley), Tilda Swinton next to him, Lucy Mangan next (I imagine she’d be quite chatty), she’d be OK next to Tim Dowling because they’re workmates, Richard M next (because they might get on) and Judy next to him, because she’s used to it.
Con O’Neill London NW5
How many other readers will share in my disappointment at not seeing the “Domestic” or “Cats And Dogs (Fighting Like)” illustrated in the various sleeping positions? In this position one partner can be found curled up on the sofa with a blanket and the other in the bed upstairs.
Conor Whitworth Nottingham
What a pity you did not ask Tim Dowling which sleeping position he and his wife adopt. Oh, but then there wasn’t one called “War Zone”.
Palmyre Carter Ilford, Essex
I have not been able to stop thinking about the baby girl left to die in a bucket of slop (The Lost Girl, 23 ­January). How lucky we are to live in a society that welcomes ­newborns regardless of their sex.
Cari Rosen London N3
Picture No 3, of a disabled buggy, and its caption is an outrage. And if you need that ­explaining, you need to educate yourself about disability and ­especially about mobility issues.
Jan Underwood Rachub, Bethesda, Gwynedd
I had to reread the profile of Chris Ofili and, sure enough, there was no mention of Sam Taylor-Wood. How are we to judge an artist if not by their celebrity mates?
D Lord Liverpool
As one born and bred in a place ­for ever associated with radio ­comedy (Balham), I am perhaps ­unduly sensitive to critical ­comments about London’s suburbia. Tony Hancock would undoubtedly have been interested (if a trifle ­perplexed) to learn that a Persian restaurant had opened in his neighbourhood, but his fictional home was in East Cheam, which was presumably even duller in the 1950s than East Sheen.
Paul Raffield London SE22
Trevor makes a good first impression, brings ­chocolate, a card and a ­lottery ticket, has great table ­manners, is chatty in a good way, chivalrous in helping a drunk girl… and gets 5 out of 10 from Susan. What has a guy got to do?
Gary Fellingham Norwich
Last week’s Let’s Move To… in a nutshell: south-east London has gastropubs only thanks to the proximity of Dulwich, while the bits that are near Catford and Peckham are well dodgy. But you should move there anyway to take up places in the schools and frolic in the parks, because these things are “lost” on the “humdrum” people who live there already.
Claire Sheridan London SE23
Why oh why is Carol Klein’s garden a picture of waving grasses and ­exquisite seedheads while mine is a mossy-brown mess?
Liz Green Burrington, north Somerset

Your welcome tribute to the refurbished glories of the oldest opera house in Europe (In praise of… Teatro di San Carlo, 27 January) could also have revelled in the fact that the production of La Clemenza di Tito which opens the new season will be led by San Carlo’s music director, the British conductor Jeffrey Tate, revered in Italy in particular as one of the greatest conductors in the world.
Andrew Holden
London
• In 1944 my father, a foot soldier in the 8th Army, went to the opera in Teatro di San Carlo, perhaps captured by the same magic as Norman Lewis. In 1985 he went back on his own to Naples, and went once again to hear the opera there. Both programmes were among his modest papers when he died. Apart from that he never went to the opera in 71 years.
William Coupar
Brighton

Your coverage of the iPad launch (28 January) had plenty about Apple’s plan to corner the ebook market, and a couple of references to the educational sector; but no mention of the needs of the critical reader. Will the iPad let you underline sections and make notes in the margins? That would be fantastic. And what about that facility supplied to generations of teenage boys by well-thumbed library books – to fall open at the steamy bits?
Chris Marshall
Droitwich, Worcestershire
• Is it me or does Steve Bell’s depiction of Tony Blair resemble Steve Jobs (If…, 28 January)? Are we about to see the announcement of the iWar?
George Tripp
Northampton

As you know, I am not known for being overly schmaltzy, (I have even been known to sign birthday cards, “yours ­sincerely”). ­However, the ­opportunity to send you a letter on your 70th birthday via the Guardian, or “my comic” as you jokingly refer to it, fills me with a sense of mischief that I know you’ll ­appreciate.
I remember growing up and adoring you, you seemed so clever and knew everything. Do you remember the time all seven of us (including A’s boyfriend) sat down and played you at Trivial Pursuit – and you still won?
You are well known for your strong opinions, and when I was young I just assumed, ­because you were my dad, that you must be right. Then, as I started to ­mature, I realised that ­possibly there were other ways of ­looking at the world, and some of them didn’t ­accord with your way. I ­remember ­doing ­Sociology A-level (a Mickey Mouse ­subject, I think you called it) and I found it a surprise that there were other philosophies than those I had grown up with.
After a period in the family ­business, I realised that it wasn’t for me and moved away from you both ­physically and ideologically. I trained as a ­therapist, I married a (now ­disillusioned) Labour voter, and (God forbid) went to work in the public ­sector.
Despite our differing views, my love and ­admiration for you has never wavered and I have enjoyed the ­interesting debates we have had over the years.
Of course, you still preface all your retorts with “With respect,” which, as we all know, is a euphemism for “OK, I’ll listen to you, but I’m still right”.
Now, at 40, I occasionally catch ­myself sounding like you and I realise that although our politics may not entirely coincide, our desire to make the best life we can for our loved ones is really where our passion lies. Your dedication to your family and your ­determination to create the best lifestyle for us has ­allowed us the ­opportunity to choose an alternative path – four out of your five children have chosen jobs that help ­others ­directly.
Within the warm chaos of ­family life at No 43, we learned the values of caring for others and the importance of being able to express our views and feelings openly.
This is something we still do as a family and, although we all get on each other’s nerves if we spend longer than three days together, I still value my siblings and parents as much as I do my own husband and children.
I love the fact that even though I am 40, married and financially ­independent, you still ask me if I need anything whenever I see you. I love the fact that your taste in clothes has never altered – checked shirts have withstood all fashion trends. I love the fact that you continue to challenge yourself, even taking up ­creative writing classes in recent years.
I love the fact that you can always be relied on to bring loads of crap (but yummy) food when you visit.
I love the fact that you give time to your grandchildren (who all adore their poppa), while still having the cricket/football/golf on in the background.
But most of all, I love the fact that you are my dad (even if you do vote Tory).
Yours sincerely, No 3 daughter

Keith Roberts (Letters, 26 January) is right to applaud the passing of the Marine and Coastal Access Act which provides for a walking route around the coast of England, and to remind us of the leading part played by the Ramblers in campaigning for this.
But he is premature in saying that the coastal access has been “secured”. The framework is there in the legislation but the implementation will at best take 10 years. The way the project is set up means that it will require the continued commitment of the government, and sufficient resources for Natural ­England working with local authorities to bring it about on the ground.
While we were passing the bill through parliament the Conservatives sometimes seemed both partial and lukewarm in their support for this part of it. The Ramblers would do well to ask their members to press their local Tory candidates on this matter. In addition, a government looking for billions of pounds of cuts may find this important scheme to be an easy option. A battle has been won but I suspect the campaign for access to our coast is not yet over.
Tony Greaves
Liberal Democrat environment ­spokesperson, House of Lords
• Gordon Joly (Letters, 28 January) is wrong to suggest that the Ramblers ignore urban walkers. Here in Sheffield, I work as a volunteer on their “Get walking – keep walking” project, with the aim of promoting the benefits of urban walking for all. The project extends to a number of major cities and includes some of the London boroughs. Details can be found at www.getwalking.org.
Fred Pickering
Brinsworth, South Yorkshire

There are many good examples of poetry in movies (On film, Film & Music, 29 January). One that springs to mind is Argentinian director Eliseo Subiela’s 1992 film El Lado Oscuro del Corazón (The Dark Side of the Heart), where the main character, Oliverio, is a young poet living in Buenos Aires and making ends meet by selling his ideas to advertising companies. In the movie Oliverio is constantly reciting poems by Juan Gelman, Mario Benedetti and his namesake Oliverio Girondo. Needless to say, the film was a success in Ibero­america, where it introduced these important Latin ­American poets to a younger generation.
Mario Lopez-Goicoechea
London
• A native, I’ve just returned to London after 26 years in New York City. While still in wonderment at how much richer London is now, I am also very aware of the economic turmoil in which it finds itself, along with much of the world. The Guardian’s response to this in publishing summaries of the great poets of the English canon (The Romantic poets, 23-29 January) is simply inspiring. There is no other word I can think of for this act of defiance and resilience in the face of upheaval and austerity. Please continue to spread the word that art and beauty are what matter most, all else is dreck.
Michael Joseph
Hounslow, Middlesex
• Does the Guardian know what it is doing in publishing the Romantic poets booklets? Have you considered that they might find their way into schools, and breed a generation of subversive and revolutionary young people? It is hardly likely that Peter Mandelson and Ed Balls would welcome their appearance in schools – not least the Shelley and Blake selections.
Lionel Burman
West Kirby, Wirral

Future historians will look back on our current obsession with euthanasia and assisted suicide and perhaps perceive a morbid displacement activity from the economic crisis engulfing us (After Islamists and literary rivals, Amis picks his toughest opponent yet: grey Britain, 25 January). But some issues remain to be cleared up before any further damage is done.
First of all, it is surely mistaken to think there is some kind of general right to commit suicide. There is nothing to be gained by legislating against suicide itself, since those who succeed are beyond the reach of punishment while those who do not deserve only sympathy. But our reaction to suicide is not the satisfaction that comes with seeing people achieving their “rights” but one of huge sadness and sorrow.
There is a fortiori no right to assisted suicide. This would entail a duty or obligation on some other person to assist those who cannot perform the deed unaided. Yet it seems counterintuitive to think we could ever have a duty to help another person to die. Blameless assisted suicide must be seen as a compassionate exception to this general rule requiring some level of investigation in each case.
Gary Kitchen
Southport, Lancashire
• Martin Amis is to be applauded for drawing attention to a very real problem. Our ageing population and pension is creating an underculture, if it hasn’t already. As Amis points out, this problem will only get worse. We are all living too long, and the longer we live the greater the potential burden we will place on the NHS and our families and friends.
We might not like the way that Amis addresses these very real issues but compare his solution to Jonathan Swift’s at the other end of the spectrum and it certainly will only help to raise awareness. (Swift advocated eating babies as a means of birth control.)
We might not like the idea of “martini and medal booths” but if that is what is needed to ensure a worthwhile debate on euthanasia then so be it. And make my Martini dry, very dry, please.
Peter Holden
London
• How typical of members of the ­chattering classes like Martin Amis to spend their time navel-gazing about growing older. How much more refreshing it would have been if he had used his talents to raise serious questions about the quality of care we give older people, whether or not it is ­acceptable that at least 2.5 million over-65s still live in poverty, and what could be done to stop tens of thousands of pensioners dying every year from the cold. But maybe that wouldn’t help to sell his new book.
Dot Gibson
General secretary, National Pensioners Convention
• Martin Amis must be a fan of the cult movie Soylent Green. In it the Edward G Robinson character goes to a euthanasia booth, actually a rather splendid looking Odeon-style building, to end his life (fittingly it was his last movie). But let us hope Amis doesn’t fancy the next bit. Charlton Heston follows the body and discovers that it, and millions of others, is being used to make the green pills with which the Soylent conglomerate are secretly feeding the world, at a ­considerable profit. On the other hand, come to think of it, it is perfect recycling.
Charles Burgess
London
• Perhaps we should be grateful for Martin Amis’s “satirical” suggestion that members of his age group who have Alzheimer’s or dementia be provided with euthanasia booths on street corners so that they are not “stinking out the restaurants and cafes and shops”.
By making the unthinkable thinkable he conveniently highlights a disturbing trend to consider wiping out patients rather than concentrating on the care and research which have formerly ­overcome major illnesses.
Perhaps Amis himself could sportingly volunteer to be the first to test an Absentium (cheekily christened “Going Amis”) as customer research. It would save his loved ones a lot of trouble and provide great publicity for his ­forthcoming novel.
Shirley Harrington
Bury, Lancashire

The reason why it takes two quarters of negative growth to make a recession (Letters, 29 January) was explained last year by Peter Jay, former ambassador to the US. He said the “two quarters negative growth is recession” definition was invented by US economic advisers to get Nixon out of a hole when one ­quarter showed negative growth, and Nixon was facing criticism that the economy was in recession.
John Richards
St Ives, Cornwall
• If citizens of the United States are to be referred to as Ustatians (Letters, 28 January) then I could pose the riddle: “Why is the duct between my ear and my throat like the New York metro?” Answer: “Because they are both Ustatian tubes”.
Dudley Turner
Westerham, Kent
• Cecilia Estrada from Ecuador asks: “When will the people of the US stop taking the name of a whole continent? I am from Ecuador, I am American, but my president is not Obama … “. I agree. I am from Canada, I am American, my president is not Obama, my prime ­minister is … wait, who is my prime ­minister again?
Dion McHugh
Northmoor, West Oxfordshire
• Your editorial (In praise of… extras, 29 January) leaves me with a question that has been troubling me for more than 70 years. While it is quite right that the fielding side should be penalised for a “bye” (which is a fielding error), why should the batting side benefit from a “leg-bye” which can only be awarded if the batsman has attempted to hit the ball but failed (ie a batting error)?
Martin Banham
Leeds
• Tim Dowling (Greetings in a post-handshake world, G2, 28 January) suggests a number of alternatives to the handshake. I grew up in a rural part of Northern Ireland where the favoured greeting of my taciturn and diffident neighbours was the BPN (barely perceptible nod). Surely a possible contender.
Aidan Crossey
London
• When it comes to cliches that irritate, I can only say: tell me about it (Letters, 28 January).
Ian Reissmann

Independent:

Mary Wright (letters, 26 January) is right in asking about a lack of 24-hour GP care, but what Mary Dejevsky was really referring to (Comment, 15 January) was the sad, inevitable outcome of the new GP contract forced upon bewildered, overworked doctors in 2004.
The fault rests squarely with a government anxious to gain control over the delivery of primary healthcare, in the vain hope of providing the same level of care for less money. Under the old system, GPs had a 24/7 contract for patient care and took a professional pride in delivering high-quality care at all times.
Now this devious government has invented a new healthcare provision (Out of Hours), mis-named it as a GP service, which it is not, and engaged local PCTs to run it. As we have learnt, the doctors working for this service are not necessarily GPs. Dr Daniel Ubani, who accidentally killed a British patient with an overdose, is a German cosmetic surgeon.
The language Ms Dejevsky uses in her article (“GPs … almost universal abandonment of working nights and weekends”, “GPs have fled out-of-hours working”, “foreign doctors … flying in … to work the hours British GPs had spurned”) highlights the wide lack of understanding of the radical changes to the delivery of healthcare in this country.
Many GPs (myself included) still work for the Out-of-Hours service and take great pride in striving to provide an excellent service under very difficult conditions where our professional responsibilities are sometimes severely exposed.
During the recent holiday, there was a backlog of 300 calls to patients and a delay of four hours. These are the sort of working conditions that would tempt even the most committed of GPs to “flee the out-of-hours working”; our professionalism stops us.
Dr Nick Bell
Oxford
Briefly…
Haiti horror in focus
Andy Kershaw’s article on Haiti (21 January) was one of the most informed since the earthquake. He is spot-on in his criticism of some western television. I watched open-mouthed at some of Matt Frei’s alarmist reporting for the BBC. Yet most pictures show the Haitians dealing with their tragedy with incredible stoicism and dignity. Thanks for bringing this faux sensationalism to wide attention.
Nick Jennings
Tisbury, Wiltshire
There’s no TV. Amen
Canon Simmons is not alone in receiving TV licence demands for a church (letters, 28 January). I regularly get them for a church-hall car-park. After eight years, I have come to the conclusion that there isn’t a human being at the other end. We have told the TVLA repeatedly that this is an error, and the demands still come with increasing officiousness. So I now bin them. As for the prospect of an enforcement visit, I say bring it on. It will make interesting photos for Facebook.
Revd Canon Ian Black
Vicar of Whitkirk, Leeds
Slim patient, fat bills
Last February, I underwent weight-loss surgery and have shed almost 11 stone. There is overwhelming evidence that the best treatment for obesity long-term is surgery (“An ethical trap for the NHS”, 22 January). PCTs say they face a dilemma with funding these operations. What they cannot seem to grasp is the potential cost of patients like me over the next 10 years when I would develop diabetes, joint problems, heart complications and cancer. How much am I going to cost then?
Daniel Brookbank
Pevensey Bay, East Sussex
All eyes on Essex
In the article on “Constable’s lost location” (26 January), two references are made to the county of Suffolk, but the map shows that, of the four reference points, two are south of the river Stour, in the county of Essex, and one is the river itself. As a resident of north Essex, I suppose I should be relieved that the beauty of this part of Essex is such a well-guarded secret.
Cate Gunn
Colne Engaine, Essex
Come again, ET
“Is anybody out there?” you ask (article, 26 January). Could it be that alien scouts have already reconnoitered Planet Earth and assessed its mean-spirited inhabitants as not worthy of further contact?
Julien Evans
Chesham, Buckinghamshire
Echo of Nuremberg hangs over Chilcot
The question whether the invasion of Iraq in 2003 (report, 28 January) was legal or illegal is in danger of appearing esoteric. It is not. The “General Treaty for the Renunciation of War” of 1928 (the so-called Kellogg-Briand Pact), which remains in force, was used as an important legal base for the prosecution in Nuremberg of those held responsible for starting the Second World War.
In the Nuremberg judgment it was stated as follows:
“The question is, what was the legal effect of this pact? The nations who signed the pact or adhered to it unconditionally condemned recourse to war for the future as an instrument of policy, and expressly renounc-ed it. After the signing of the pact, any nation resorting to war as an instrument of national policy breaks the pact. In the opinion of the Tribunal, the solemn renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy necessarily involves the proposition that such a war is illegal in international law; and those who plan and wage such a war, with its inevitable and terrible consequences, are committing a crime in so doing.
“War for the solution of international controversies undertaken as an instrument of national policy certainly includes a war of aggression and such a war is therefore outlawed by the pact. As Mr Henry L Stimson, then Secretary of State of the United States said in 1932: ‘War between nations was renounced by the signatories of the Kellogg-Briand Treaty. This means that it has become throughout practically the entire world … an illegal thing. Hereafter, when engaged in armed conflict, either one or both of them must be termed violators of this general treaty law… We denounce them as law-breakers’.”
A similar denunciation from the Chilcot inquiry would not be inappropriate.
Wade Mansell
Professor of International Law, University of Kent, Canterbury
Occasionally, even the unacceptably tame Chilcot inquiry adds another small fact to the increasing pile of evidence that demonstrates that neither the US nor the UK engaged with the UN in good faith. They were willing to use the UN for their aims, to find legitimacy for the war, but were never willing to accept its authority. The decision to go to war was made through private agreements, and the only concern by either government (more accurately, those in control of the governments) was to sell the case for the war. The die was cast long before the question of the second resolution came up.
Tony Blair had a harder time of selling the case for war to the British public than Bush to his country: Tony could not even trust his own cabinet. Ever increasingly, it appears that the sole preoccupation of those in his inner circle was how to get away with it.
Is there a single document anywhere that shows even the slightest concern or interest by any member of the inner circle in how the post-war society would be for the Iraqi civilians? The dissent was not crushed. It was simply ignored. Anyone who had not bought into the project fully was at best used, as was Lord Goldsmith, or ignored, as were Robin Cook and Clare Short.
Jari Junikka
London SE5
I realise it’s heresy even to ask, but why on earth should we care about the legality – or otherwise – of the Iraq war? “Illegal” is not, after all, synonymous with “immoral” and international law is, to say the absolute minimum, a somewhat nebulous concept.
Isn’t it obvious that putting legality ahead of morality leads, inexorably, to the toleration of evil regimes, to passivity in the face of massacres (Rwanda, Srebrenica, Darfur) and to Russia, China and France having the power to veto whatever they like?
Was leaving Saddam Hussein in power, while killing a million innocent Iraqis with the UN sanctions that thwarted his WMD ambitions, “moral” because it was legal? Would the ousting of this genocidal despot – by volunteer armies – now have to be condemned as “immoral” if it could be proved beyond doubt that Bush and Blair acted “illegally”?
KEITH GILMOUR
GLASGOW
Michael Savage reports (22 January) that Jack Straw “deeply regretted the grave loss of life” as a result of the invasion of Iraq, adding that “We did not have the benefit of hindsight”. We can all perhaps recognise that particular sentiment but what we require from our Foreign Secretary and indeed our Prime Minister before they embark on any military adventure is a degree of foresight.
Both the chief UN weapons inspector at the time, Hans Blix, and a former weapons inspector, Scott Ritter, urged caution in the approach to the war. But they were ignored in a headlong rush to invade that country. Oh yes, hindsight can be a wonderful thing, but foresight is infinitely better.
Jeff Hebblewhite
Harrogate, North Yorkshire
Isn’t it curious that Lord Goldsmith was never directly asked if he was pressured to change his mind over the legality of the Iraq invasion? Instead, he was given an easily deniable scenario from a tabloid newspaper involving two junior colleagues, Falconer and Morgan, “pinning him against a wall”, and simply asked to comment. “Utter nonsense” it may well have been, but it did not address the matter of “pressure”.
I trust he will be recalled to the inquiry to answer a more precise question.
BILL ANGUS
KENDAL, CUMBRIA
Anthony Scrivener QC says that the opinion expressed may depend on the facts of the case. Does this imply that there may be circumstances in which the facts of the case may be considered irrelevant in reaching “the opinion”?
William Moloney
Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire
Food for thought in our nurseries
We are concerned by the claims of the Organix/Soil Association’s campaign “Better nursery food now” and its calls for “undercover mums” to visit nurseries (report, 20 January). You would find it very difficult to find any nursery managing to feed a child on 25p a meal. Nurseries help children stay happy and healthy, and must meet inspection requirements.
There is a danger that asking parents to be suspicious of nursery food will cause misconceptions. Much of the food is home-made with fresh ingredients, every part of the process designed to be as healthy as possible, but it is good for parents to have a frank discussion with a nursery about the food.
Some reports claim nursery food is “too healthy”, with meals more appropriate to older children, and we agree that more support, guidance and training is needed so nurseries can deliver the best possible menus that meet a child’s needs.
Purnima Tanuku
Chief Executive, National Day Nurseries Association, Huddersfield
Horse sense about homeopathy
The “homeopathy is placebo” argument is becoming interesting. Vet Emma Milne (letters, 27 January) suggests horses treated with homeopathy would have got better without intervention because their diseases are mostly self-limiting. It must surely follow that most horses treated with conventional drugs would also have got better without intervention. If so, perhaps the veterinary profession should be worried about this revelation.
As for the placebo effect on humans, my husband had a severe sinus infection and tried four different homeopathic remedies but none worked; where was the alleged placebo effect when he really needed it? In fact, only over-the-counter painkillers worked. Does this make homeopathy a placebo which doesn’t work but paracetemol a placebo which does?
Professional, registered homeopaths study remedies, philosophy, ethics and medical science for four years and commit themselves to ongoing continuing professional development afterwards. Although they do not study for as long as vets and doctors, think how much shorter that training could be if they needed to know only about placebos.
Jane Hurley
Teignmouth, Devon
Emma Milne tries to explain how the placebo effect works on horses through “the high incidence of self-limiting disease”, which factor applies whatever treatment is used, “and the statistical phenomenon of regression to the mean” (whatever that may mean).
Yet common sense tells us that there is a psychological effect on humans given a placebo; even with intelligent animals such as horses, there is not the same awareness, and therefore not much, if any, psychological effect.
If you give the wrong remedy in homeopathy, nothing happens. At least there are no side-effects as with orthodox medicine.
Dr Cynthia Holloway
Hove, East Sussex

Gordon Brown and Hamid Karzai say they will bring low-level Taliban fighters into the fold with a reintegration programme which will offer jobs, money and development if they lay down their weapons (report, 29 January).
The international community has been offering Afghanistan’s people jobs, money and development since 2001. But despite some improvements, for example in health and education, economic development still seems remote to many. Unemployment is 40 per cent and a third of Afghans live on under a dollar a day.
Behind the grand promises and the huge sums spent on the military, only £58 development aid has been spent per Afghan per year since 2003. Much aid has followed the fighting, to win hearts and minds for the military campaign, rather than having gone to areas where the need is greatest. Agriculture, the backbone of the Afghan economy, has declined and remains underfunded.
Poverty is a driving factor in the conflict. The international community must put the basic needs of all Afghans at the heart of its strategy.
G B Adhikari
Afghanistan Country Director, ActionAid,
London N19
Conspicuously missing and purposefully excluded from the conference are those who perhaps suffered most under the Taliban: Afghan women. It is a mark of their strength and commitment that Afghan women made their way to London to try to have their voices heard.
Why are those with responsibility for rebuilding Afghanistan afraid to hear the views of the other 50 per cent of the Afghan population? Might it be because so many Afghan women have zero tolerance for any accommodation with the Taliban and refuse to have their futures sold down the river?
President Karzai said any Taliban coming into the system must abide by the constitution (which guarantees equality of men and women). But his own record of respect for women’s rights is seriously flawed. He was willing to legalise the marital rape of Shia women, and he has also agreed to the pardon of convicted rapists.
That women’s voices are excluded is inexcusable. Stability, peace and prosperity will not come to Afghanistan without respect for human rights, and the significant participation of its women.
Anber Raz
Asia Programme Officer, Equality Now,
London WC2
The roots of our education system
Bruce Anderson (Comment, 25 January) has fallen into the common error of believing that legislation imposed a tripartite system of secondary education. The Education Act 1944 rather required local education authorities to secure the provision of (not necessarily wholly to provide) sufficient schools for their area to suit the ages, abilities and aptitudes of pupils.
The so-called tripartite system was put forward by a committee chaired by Sir Cyril Norwood, an ex-public-school headmaster, in a report published in 1943. The Ministry of Education encouraged local education authorities to adopt it, but it was not mandatory. Had they chosen to do so, they could have imposed the two-stream, grammar and technical, approach favoured by Anderson.
K P Poole
Canterbury, Kent
Harrow headmaster Barnaby Lenon says state schools are cramming their pupils with “worthless qualifications” (23 January). In state comprehensives, such as the one at which I did my GCSEs in north London, students toil in an atmosphere reflective of the challenges of life, battling classroom disruption and limited resources.
In fee-charging institutions such as Mr Lenon’s, students from challenging backgrounds are excluded on the basis of parents’ wealth, giving an unfair advantage in classroom atmosphere. Private schools have smaller classes and spoon-fed exam techniques. How will such students fare when they enter the real world, where they must motivate themselves?
Whose qualifications are of more “worth”? The spoon-fed Harrovian among a majority of straight-A* pupils, or a state-educated pupil who has genuinely achieved in a challenging atmosphere?
Conrad Landin(16)
London NW5
In discussing the way forward for British education, Bruce Anderson denigrates comprehensive schooling. He cites the example of a youngster who attended one but later came to an unfortunate early death. This is a highly questionable attempt at correlation. I am sure it would not be difficult to discover cases of former public school pupils who came to similarly sad ends.
He states that those who favour the comprehensive system “abhor excellence”. Again this lacks credibility. On the contrary, I believe most of our comprehensives do a good job in their circumstances. They have to deal with inadequate funding and resources, large class sizes and often have to cope with the most disadvantaged and damaged youngsters in our society. It is so easy for critics to knock the schools, rather than try to address the underlying issues.
Mr Anderson favours the ap-proach proposed by the Conservatives and their education spokesman, Michael Gove. In a throwback to the 19th century, they plan to allow any faith or other special-interest group to run their own schools. How this correlates with the Tories’ stated concern for Britain’s “broken” society and their desire to re-energise local communities, I don’t know.
What could possibly contribute more to social breakdown than a hotchpotch of disparate organisations running schools? Surely we want our children to grow up in a tolerant, mixed-faith and/or faith-free environment. Separating them according to their parents’ religious beliefs or special interests is clearly socially divisive and, in my view, regressive.
Keith O’Neill
Shrewsbury, Shropshire
We are told the economy is now out of recession (27 January). Many young people I know from university have yet to secure graduate jobs, and statistics ignore those who, like me, are still in the casual jobs they had as students.
I sent about 400 applications in the summer and managed to secure only one interview. Those of us who were persuaded that the way to an affluent and bright future was to attend university have been sorely misled. In this economic climate, there are no jobs for those who are too qualified. One employer told me he could not hire me because people with degrees eventually move on to better things.
Laura Wild
Aberdeen
Age time-bomb is already ticking
The proposal to stop forcing workers into retirement at 65 will go a long way to solving Britain’s personal debt crisis (letters, 27 January). Unless people work longer, they won’t be debt-free come retirement. Our studies found that more than half of professionals aged 35 to 45 said they would have financial problems in old age if they did not inherit a parental windfall.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission recommends more flexible working conditions for older Britons. But what of those not physically able to work beyond 65? More than half of young working adults assume all care costs will be covered by the state, unaware that the weekly state pension would not cover even a fifth of the average cost of residential care. This alarming shortfall could become one of our biggest challenges.
The Government must do more to encourage people to think about their future if we are to avoid the massive time-bomb now ticking.
Will Davies
Elizabeth Finn Care,
London W6
I am approaching 67 and in paid employment, working for a charity, so I’m supportive of any government moves to limit ageism in the workplace. I also have three occupational pensions, plus dividends from share ownership, with tax deducted at source. But the Inland Revenue cannot organise joined-up administration of the tax affairs of those older than 65. In my case, four separate tax offices regularly take up to two years to match their various records of my income.
As a result, I had to pay £1,600 “back tax”. Great to have government backing to working beyond a meaningless age limit but frustrating to be exposed to the chronic inefficiencies of that government’s tax collectors.
Mike Abbott
London W4
And bang went our unbreakable glass
As soon as I saw your article, “Duralex, the glass tumbler that would not be broken” (27 January), I recognised the one in the photograph. I have had five of them for many years and can vouch for their sturdiness, having dropped one on to a concrete floor recently and seen it bounce and come to no harm.
There was a set of six. The only one to perish did so spectacularly, I was told by my parents. Apparently, the set was sitting quietly in a sideboard when there was a sudden bang. My mother opened the sideboard and found only five glasses covered with white powder.
On the bases of my surviving tumblers is the message, “Crystolac Toughened. Regd. British”. Beneath this, there are two dots, signifying they were manufactured in 1942. They were a wedding present to my parents that December.
The shape of my tumblers is almost indistinguishable from the photograph of the Duralex Picardie though they are perhaps slightly more curvaceous. So, does the “design classic which screams ‘France’ just as much as the Eiffel Tower” actually scream “Britain” as much as, um, the Blackpool Tower?
Graham P Davis
Bracknell, Berkshire
About 40 years ago, I bought some Duralex tumblers. The salesman hurled one to the floor to demonstrate their unbreakability. When I got home, I performed the trick for my mother, and she was most impressed.
Then my aunt came in, and my mother, without giving any reason, hurled a glass on to the same hard-tiled floor. It shivered into a thousand pieces. I was unwilling to risk another glass, so my aunt treated my mother, her younger sibling, as not quite the full shilling, as she had always thought.
Ann Dowling
Manchester
The electorate is already balanced
The glaring anomaly in our voting system (“Cameron to cut seats by 10 per cent”, 22 January), is not about Conservatives, but between Labour and the Liberal Democrats.
The Tories achieved 30 per cent of the seats from 32 per cent of the vote, and will not gain much by any form of PR. Labour is way over-represented in the Commons (55 per cent of seats from 35 per cent of the votes), and Liberal Democrats got only 11 per cent of the seats from 22 per cent of the vote. The electorate is already “balanced” and a fairer voting system would produce a more “balanced” parliament.
Councillor David Pollard
Leicester
Children first
Terence Blacker’s assertion (27 January) that “our children are being neglected, by the BBC” is not true. In fact, we are increasing the £125m we spend every year by an additional £25m across three years, in television, radio and online. Our commitment to children is unwavering.
Joe Godwin
Director, BBC Children’s,
London W1
Truth about PoW life
Your suggestion in The Big Question (26 January) that many wartime “enlisted men” did not try to escape prison camps did them a gross injustice. Officers and “other ranks” were segregated and the ORs were used as slave labour. Look at how badly the troops left at Dunkirk were treated. The classic escape movies are misleading, and do not begin to approach the reality of PoW life for ORs.
Dave Carr
Orpington, Kent
Watered down
Homeopathic medicines closely resemble holy water (letters, 29 January). It is not what they are which is distinctive, but their history. Just as there is no scientific way of distinguishing between holy water and ordinary water, there is no way of distinguishing one homeopathic medicine from another. Surely, it is disingenuous for homeopaths to claim their medicines contain “a very small amount” of the active ingredient?
J E Crooks
London SW15
Look further ahead
In David Cameron’s draft manifesto for the NHS, he said that under a Conservative government, patients with long-term health conditions would get a single budget that combines their health- and social-care funding. With an estimated one million new social-care workers required by 2025, it is essential that recruitment and training of the workforce is looked at closely.
Professor David Croisdale-Appleby
Independent Chair, Skills for Care, Leeds
Write on
I have just heard a technology expert declare about the launch of Apple’s i-Pad, without a hint of irony, that existing examples of the technology “looked good on paper but failed to deliver”. Leave books and newspapers on paper then, I say.
Chris Bratt
Arnside, Cumbria

Times:

Sir, You are right to criticise the Department for International Development’s finances (“Arrested development”, Jan 26, and letters, Jan 29) but the problem is that of quality, not quantity. Comparatively, the UK does not spend a staggering amount on overseas aid. The Highways Agency alone receives more taxpayer money and DfID is outspent by all but a few Whitehall departments. David Cameron and Andrew Mitchell are not being extravagant in insisting on ring-fencing the department’s funds; we can afford to help the world’s poorest and we should continue to do so despite the recession.
Public cynicism regarding aid stems not from a belief that we should spend less but rather that we should not be wasting our money or, worse, funding corruption or dictatorship. The provision of aid via “direct budget support” (that is, money put straight into a country’s central budget “pot”) has been pioneered and championed by DfID but has left us increasingly ignorant about how money is spent on the ground. Budgetary aid cannot be easily tracked once it goes into a finance ministry and DfID has not tried hard to do so, as your report on Malawi suggests.
The governments of Uganda, Ethiopia and Rwanda also receive a great deal of DfID aid through this method and none of these countries can be described as democracies. DfID must be able to show beyond doubt that taxes are not being indirectly spent on presidential helicopters or stuffing ballot boxes. By not doing so it provides fodder to its detractors and, ultimately, risks its long-term future.
Jonathan Fisher
St Antony’s College
University of Oxford

Peter Cressall wrote:
I should very much hope that the Highways Agency received more than is spent on foreign aid. After all, motorists contribute a colossal sum in fuel taxes alone, and to see the state of the road network, more appropriate to the countries that receive aid, whilst their money goes largely to swell the palaces and bank accounts of aid recipients, is irritating, to say the very least.

Sir, Professor Allott (letter, Jan 28) is right to point out the limitations of overall law in the context of war. For most of us, however, his arcane analysis is of less interest than the culpability of one particular man (Tony Blair, or two if you count George Bush) in the light of the Charter of the United Nations and more especially of the Statutes of the International Criminal Court.
Professor Sir Bryan Thwaites
Fishbourne, W Sussex
Sir, Paying terrorists to go away (“Taleban fighters to be ‘bought off’ with $500m fund”, Jan 28) has been tried before. It was called Danegeld. It didn’t work.
Peter Waterfield
Helston, Cornwall

Sir, As a recently retired police officer of some 32 years’ service, I would like to take this opportunity to apologise to Michael Mancini on behalf of “proper” police officers for his treatment at the hands of PC Gray (“Driver has to pay through the nose for using a tissue while at the wheel”, Jan 29).
Perhaps PC Gray should be reminded that he is employed to serve the public, not to harass them. Amazing how much trust can be destroyed at the stroke of a pen.
Richard Wilkinson
South Yorkshire Police (1972-2003)

Neo Vita wrote:
Many will recall the speedcam picture of a yobbo plod at the wheel as he sped through. Hands off the wheel and both thumbs up to his colleagues.

With a stupid grin on his face.

I wonder if he was fined for lack of control.
January 30, 2010 12:47 AM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Peter Cressall wrote:
Such enthusiasm is surely better suited to the Health and Safety bureaucrats. How about a transfer?
January 29, 2010 7:57 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Trudi Morris wrote:
He’s in the wrong job, he would make amazing amounts of money from sales.

Sir, Stripped of its trademark vitriol, Richard Dawkins’s tirade against Christianity (“Hear the rumble of Christian hypocrisy”, Opinion, Jan 29) is simply a cry of moral indignation against the idea that God might just possibly be right to punish human sin and require atonement for its forgiveness.
But you cannot have moral indignation without first having morality. Since Dawkins admits in The Selfish Gene that “a human society based simply on the gene’s law of universal ruthless selfishness would be a very nasty society . . . ”, his moral stance is at complete odds with his reductionist beliefs. Whence, then, does he get his morality?
The answer, as I argue at length in Who Made God?, is that atheists such as Dawkins who take the moral high ground can only do so on the basis of an anti-Christian mindset that is far less rational than the religious faith that they so deplore.
Professor Edgar Andrews
Emeritus Professor of Materials
University of London
Sir, Richard Dawkins’s Opinion was so brilliantly lucid, accurate and damning of Christianity that I was almost inclined to thank God for it.
Maurice Juggins
Eckington, Worcs

Tina Rhea wrote:
A religion is not needed for a moral system. A society cannot function unless people follow certain basic rules that allow us to live in harmony together: no killing, stealing, lying, cheating, etc. Treating others as you wish to be treated is a universal ideal. Kant needed no religion to derive it as the Categorical Imperative: always act so that your conduct could be a universal rule.
January 30, 2010 2:31 AM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Arthur Nowr wrote:
I wonder whether Richard Dawkins ever regrets riding the tiger of religious heresy? He must be fed up to the back teeth, having to argue his point with those so biased in their views, they have no capacity for reasoned thought.

Sir, As the mother of a paraplegic son, I, too, rage against the selfishness of able-bodied drivers who hog disabled parking spaces.
However, Chris Willis’s friend (“Driver’s revenge”, Jan 29) may have been precipitate in censuring the perceived “rogue” driver. I can often be seen leaping from my car in a disabled spot.
What observers might not see is that I return accompanied by my son in his wheelchair.
Sarah Leighton
East Preston, W Sussex

Sally Ellenby wrote:
Good point, Sarah. But we who have worked in the Health Service know that the disabled parking system is constantly being abused. When I was practice manager in an urban GP practice, the doctors often referred to the fact that patients could become quite aggressive when they thought that they were being denied their “rights”. While your own predicament is not, of course, in this category or anywhere near it, many people with disabled stickers, it would seem, are have mobility problems as a result of lacking exercise or even just because they eat too much. Hope I don’t sound callous.

r, Dr Vicky Pope’s defence of the robustness of “the science” of climate change is too comprehensive (Commentary, Jan 28). It is high time for the Met Office to recognise that the surface temperature record is deeply flawed: not just the discredited 1,000-year “hockey stick” that was the iconic centrepiece of Al Gore’s film, but also the more recent data. The leaked University of East Anglia e-mails reveal the obsessive mentality of scientists who have put truth-seeking second to pursuit of a mission.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s “mistakes” that Dr Pope refers to are no ordinary errors. They show a deliberate disregard for the principles of scientific objectivity. The IPCC had every reason to know that its account of the Himalayan glacier melting was misleading, just as it had every reason to know that its predictions of hurricane frequency and intensity were both unsubstantiated and implausible. On more than 25 occasions, the IPCC cites essays by WWF or Greenpeace as though they were serious academic studies.
The basic physics tells us that greenhouse gases have some warming effect. How material, how lasting, how much offset or accentuated by natural influences is unknown at this stage of scientific understanding — the temperature record certainly suggests no immediate cause for alarm.
Computer models will not give us the answer. They can only regurgitate what is programmed into them.
Lord Leach of Fairford
London EC3

Michael Cunningham wrote:
Arthur, we won’t develop understanding through computer models which are based on ignorance and supposition and which fail to show recent cooling; we need to do more basic science, based on good data rather than the shonky proxies and modified data which feed the models.
January 30, 2010 4:37 AM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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julie grace wrote:
Everyone who can read must be aware by now that only Hansen’s figures (GISS) show warming.
The other temperature sets show cooling as sceptical scientists have been trying to tell the world for years.
Does this not strike you as odd, Vicky?
January 30, 2010 2:02 AM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Arthur Nowr wrote:
It’s a shame that Lord Leach spoiled an excellent letter with the final paragraph. Computer models do a little more than regurgitate what is programmed. It just happens that the global weather system is very complex and beyond the state of human understanding.

Telegraph:

SIR – The Government has blocked the use of certain letters sent by Tony Blair to President George Bush. This obviously disadvantages the deliberations of the Chilcot Inquiry.
The Government has thereby created a large question mark over the true value of the inquiry’s eventual findings.
 
Gordon Galletly
Halstead, Kent
SIR – Nerve agents, as used by Iraq, can be made in a garden shed. (Some people put weak ones on their children’s hair to kill nits.) Nuclear weapons take hundreds of people with adequate funding and large factories decades to make.
Mr Blair used the term WMD for both, obscuring the difference and conflating the threat. There was never any possibility that Iraq had nuclear weapons.
Neville Nicholson
Helions Bumpstead, Suffolk
SIR – The Constitutional Reform Act of 2005 obliges its holder to swear “that in the office of Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain I will respect the rule of law”. The present incumbent is Jack Straw, who presumably took this oath.
Yet as Foreign Secretary Mr Straw felt free to ignore the unequivocal advice of his chief legal adviser, Sir Michael Wood, that the war in Iraq would be illegal: apparently on the grounds that as Home Secretary, it had been Mr Straw’s usual practice to ignore both legal advice and the judgments of the courts. One therefore wonders how seriously Mr Straw took the Lord Chancellor’s oath.
Jonathan Morgan
Fellow and Tutor in Law
St Catherine’s College, Oxford
SIR – Talk of “international law” and the Iraq war is misleading. The key phrase during Sir Michael Wood’s evidence was “customary international law”.
A “customary international law” is not enforceable in the way citizens normally understand the law to be. It is a loose agreement of principle between states.
Whatever those who loathe Mr Blair say, there is no statute that binds states in the way that citizens are bound not to commit burglary. Nor can there ever be till there is world government, since few states will surrender their sovereign right to protect what they see as their nation’s interests.
As Mark Janis puts it in his Introduction to International Law, “The determination of customary international law is more an art than a scientific method”. So for all his bluntness, it looks as though Jack Straw was bang right.
Rob White
London N3
SIR – Mr Blair as Prime Minister made thousands of decisions. It is bizarre that he is now being persecuted for the only one, rescuing Iraq from Saddam Hussein, that he actually got right.
Ian Stuart
Dingwall, Ross-shire
Parents in the MMR case
SIR – Throughout the GMC hearings against Dr Andrew Wakefield and Professors John Walker-Smith and Simon Murch (report, January 29), the case against them focused on 11 of the 12 children whose autism and bowel disease were described in The Lancet in 1998.
The parents of one of the Lancet 12 have signed this letter; the other signatories also have children with autism and bowel disease as described in the Lancet study.
Part of the GMC’s case put the parents into two contrasting narratives. The first was of parents pressuring their GPs for referrals to Dr Wakefield, exaggerating their children’s symptoms, campaigning against the MMR vaccine, and consenting to invasive procedures not in their children’s best interests. In this story, the prosecution downgraded the children’s serious symptoms into minor illnesses.
At other times, parents were presented as passively exploited by Dr Wakefield.
At no time were the Lancet parents and their disabled children given a voice to answer the GMC’s allegations and tell their very different stories. In this, the longest and most expensive GMC hearing, not one parent was a complainant.
Throughout, the parents supported the three doctors, recognising that they were prepared to address symptoms which no other doctor would, and to research the question of why their children regressed into autism and developed bowel disease following the MMR jab. The question remains unanswered whether or not MMR is causally implicated.
What is the outcome of the GMC findings other than to stop the doctors’ research and deter other doctors from researching the role of vaccines in child ill-health?
Ann and Martin Hewitt
John Stone
Pat and William Marchant
Joan and John Campbell
London N22
Cameron’s gay appeal
SIR – As a gay man and committed Conservative and Christian, I endorse what my party leader has said (report, January 27) about the need to teach children that homosexuality is indeed normal and that gay men and women should be treated with respect.
This is not about promoting a particular sexuality. (I believe you cannot “promote” homosexuality or heterosexuality.) Rewarding stability (marriage and civil partnerships) within the tax system is also welcome. Gay people who have never voted Conservative are now prepared, after 12 miserable years under Labour, to give our party a chance. So it’s important for David Cameron to stick to this agenda.
Justin Hinchcliffe
Deputy Chairman (Political)
Tottenham Conservative Association
London, N17
Endless Murray mania
SIR – Andy Murray is still in his early twenties and there are four grand-slams a year. If his career matches the length of Roger Federer’s, the volume of hyperbole is too depressing to contemplate.
As a middle-aged Englishman, I feel the idea of a decade of Murray mania sapping the very marrow from my bones.
Steve Baldock
Handcross, West Sussex
SIR – Northern Rock has renewed its support for Newcastle United and RBS sponsors Andy Murray.
Both banks are mainly publicly owned. What are the expected benefits?
John Gibson
Standlake, Oxfordshire
Testing climate prediction
SIR – Your criticism of the predictions by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Leading article, January 26) raises questions over the reliability of published scientific research.
In reaching its conclusions, the IPCC has to rely on published papers. The hallmark of a good paper is that it has been peer-reviewed and published in a journal with a high academic reputation.
But that does not mean that the results it contains meet the standard of proof required in a legal inquiry. After exhaustive investigations of the Flixborough chemical plant explosion, for example, the Court of Inquiry reached a conclusion about what happened. That involved much searching scrutiny of alternative theories.
Even then, the court’s conclusion was qualified as being only “within the balance of probabilities”.
Arguments and conclusions that can resist detailed cross-examination by a skilled lawyer are much more likely to stand the test of time than conclusions approved by peer review.
That is why I support Lord Lawson’s call for an independent inquiry into global warming predictions. So much depends on those predictions; it is not enough to leave them to the scientific community.
David Newland
Emeritus Professor of Engineering Cambridge University
Ickleton, Essex
Security of private data
SIR – Why should anyone believe Jenny Watson when she states that the Electoral Commission will ensure that National Insurance numbers are kept secure and confidential (Letters, January 29)?
History has shown that no department of this Government and few private companies can do this. Just think of all those instances where data has been “mislaid”.
M. E. Hood
Gorleston-on-Sea, Norfolk
Pattern of egg crime
SIR – My car was once egged by hooligans.
The paintwork was chipped by the shells (Letters, January 29) as they broke on to the car, with, rather oddly, each circular ring of fine thin chips conforming to the widest diameter of the egg shell, and no damage within the circle itself.
Robert Warner
Aston, Oxfordshire
Distinguishing aid from military action in Afghanistan
SIR – Neil O’Brien (Comment, January 27) rightly argues that Afghanistan deserves aid, as the world’s second poorest country.
However, he is wrong to argue that aid should become “an essential component of Nato’s tool kit”. Development is complex and political – all the more so in countries affected by war.
There, militarisation of aid can place projects at risk of targeting by insurgents. Effective aid entails the trust and ownership of the local community.
This is fundamentally at odds with the external and short-term agendas that drive military operations. Blurring the lines between military and aid efforts compromises the efficacy of assistance, and puts lives at risk.
Howard Mollett
CARE International UK
London SE1
SIR – We are told that the key to transforming Afghanistan into a modern democracy is to stamp out corruption.
Gordon Brown has announced plans to bri… sorry, pay the Taliban to lay down their weapons. Is there a disconnect here?
Dr Wynne Weston-Davies
Salperton, Gloucestershire

Irish Times:

Madam, – Cardinal Seán Brady (Front page, January 29th) decries the discussion of the “removal of faith” from schools as a “Trojan horse” which would leave us destined “to remain locked in tensions”. The sense of entitlement which the Catholic Church displays regarding education in Ireland is continually exasperating for those of us who wish to live in a modern, liberal state.
First, he asserts that the removal of church control of schools would leave the government of the day to define its morals and ethos. This is both deliberately simplistic and naive. In almost all other Western European countries, there is separation of church and state, and the schools are run according to the principles of that state, not of the government of the day.
To follow Cardinal Brady’s argument is to suggest Catholic principles are better suited for primary schools than those upon which we base ourselves as a nation.
Second, despite his pleas for pluralism, he states, “our future lies in ensuring that our schools become more authentically Catholic, both in terms of the authentic Catholic doctrine they teach and the Christian environment”. If we are to run our schools according to authentic Catholic doctrine, rather than the principles of the State, are we to teach our children that divorce is wrong and that homosexuality is a sin, despite the legality of both?
Discussion of removing religious doctrine from primary schools does not cause tension; it identifies a fundamental contradiction in Irish society – the gap between what we believe as a nation, and what children are taught to believe in 90 per cent of Irish primary schools. For too long the Catholic Church has stifled debate about its role in Irish society. I would sincerely hope that we are finally mature enough, as a nation, to have that debate. – Yours, etc,
TOM SHEPPARD,
Foxes Grove,
Shankill,
Co Dublin.
Madam, – I have read with interest the debate regarding whether schools under either Protestant or Catholic authority should continue to be allowed to have such influence. And I wonder why the churches are so keen to maintain this influence.
Having gone to the Methodist-run school, Wesley College, in Dublin, I heard plenty about our “ethos” and developing the spirituality of the students. But I wonder in the long term does it achieve much? In my age group, say 25- to 40-year-olds, several thousand have been through my alma mater. However, while I admit this is not scientifically based, there seems to me little evidence of large numbers of this age group in our churches. Indeed, many I talk to who have been through a church-run school have little or no interest in church life and faith. Certainly, they are people of integrity and honesty and goodness, but that could be achieved through a State-run school.
What we are finding in the Methodist Church is that specific youth-oriented programmes whether they are Saturday night youth clubs, weekends away or summer camps, are far more effective in encouraging young people to explore their faith and become involved in church life and witness. Amid all the laughter and craic that the kids have at these events, many are discovering a living Christian faith, a faith which really can’t be shown to them as they sit in rows in a classroom for a religious education period in between maths and geography.
My call is for the church to not be afraid to step away from the education system and instead explore new and creative ways of presenting the Gospel and inviting the young people to join of their own volition. – Yours, etc,
HEIDI GOOD,
Comer Road,
Kilkenny.
Madam, – In 1831, Lord Stanley, Chief Secretary for Ireland, sent a letter to the Duke of Leinster outlining his proposals for a system of national school education in Ireland. What he proposed was a multi-denominational system under denominational management. These proposals resulted in the establishment of a Board of National Education.
Church reaction to the proposals was mixed. Initially the Ulster Presbyterians objected to the system, to be followed by the other churches, leading to nearly a century of conflict and turf wars and compromise solutions until the original concept was lost. A calm reading of the original documents will show that the proposals were very far-sighted.
Is it not now time that the original proposals by Lord Stanley be revisited to see how they could be adapted to resolve the current impasse in the debate on the management structures of our primary schools? – Yours, etc,
LOUIS O’FLAHERTY,
Lorcan Drive,
Santry,
Dublin 9.
Madam, – The Christian maxim give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s, is apt. Religious ethos is a matter for the individual, the family and the church and has no place in the school.
Let the church take care of its ethos and let the State get on with educating our children. – Yours, etc,
EOGHAN O NEILL,
Beechdale Grove,
Blessington,
Co Wicklow.
State’s response to abortion
Madam, – Kudos to Human Rights Watch for highlighting the continued shameful state of Ireland’s abortion policy (Home News, January 29th). The status quo is an act of cultural hypocrisy. For supposedly “moral” reasons we have the most draconian anti-abortion laws outside of the developing world. But knowing that actually enforcing these policies would have disastrous social and public health consequences, we quietly allow citizens to go abroad for abortions, as a kind of safety valve.
We pretend that the issue doesn’t exist so that we don’t have to engage in an emotive and difficult debate about changes that need to be made, or even acknowledge the concept of reproductive rights. We just fob the problem off on someone else. As usual, the middle and upper classes do just fine under this system of societal doublethink, while the poorest and most vulnerable are left at risk and forgotten about. A typical “Irish solution to an Irish problem”. – Yours, etc,
DARAGH McDOWELL,
Drummartin Terrace,
Goatstown,
Dublin 14.
Bishops to meet survivors
Madam, – Cardinal Seán Brady says that the bishops are meeting survivors before going to Rome (Home News, January 29th). Isn’t it a tad late to be using clergy abuse victims as publicity fodder to try to drive the message “we care”?
Having met Cardinal Brady last year and given him and others who came with him my book on survivors’ experiences, The Courage to Tell, I have heard not one single response from them since. It was as if those who wrote of their experiences had vanished into the ether.
So what does Cardinal Brady mean when he says bishops are meeting survivors? Let’s hear the results! – Yours, etc,
Dr MARGARET KENNEDY,
Proby Park,
Dalkey,
Co Dublin.
Dissolving the NUI
Madam, – On April 18th, 1967, the then minister for education, Donough O’Malley, without any advance notice or debate, announced the government’s cabinet decision to dissolve the National University of Ireland and to merge Trinity and UCD, “to remove” he said, “the insidious partition which divides our capital city”.
No statement could have united the academic communities of the two universities more than that one, where we combined, with the support of the newly formed Irish Federation of University Teachers, (IFUT), to reject that decision. We succeeded. The famous merger never took place.
Now we have the announcement by the current Minister for Education, Batt O’Keeffe, without any advance notice or debate, that the National University of Ireland is to be dissolved. One wonders if that is a considered Government Cabinet decision? In any event, I would hope that the academic communities and graduates of the universities of the NUI will once more reject that decision and say No to the Government.
It is an ill-considered and wrong decision, making neither fiscal nor academic sense, and should go the way of the O’Malley decision of 43 years ago. – Yours, etc,
Dr JOHN KELLY,
Prof Emeritus,
The National University of Ireland,
Dublin.
Count me in
Madam, – I commend Andrew Peregrine’s suggestion (January 28th) of having people declare themselves as belonging to a Christian church (or any other faith for that matter) and pay a percentage of their own income tax to a fund that is divided between all the prospective churches and groups.
Let the churches and their communities find funding from their membership and leave our taxes alone. I sign up to my chosen groups, I pay my trade union dues and my political party membership fees and if the Government in a petty attempt to rattle the unions, chooses to withdraw the small tax relief my union dues accrues, then why shouldn’t the religious organisations lose their government-cushioned benefits as well?
This is a secular society we live in after all, or so I am led to believe. – Yours, etc,
RACHEL MATHEWS-McKAY,
Belmont Avenue,
Dublin 4.
Of pods and pads
Madam, – iPod, iPhone, iPad, iPass! – Yours, etc,
JOHN GLEESON,
Lucan Road,
Chapelizod,
Dublin 20.
Public service work to rule
Madam, – Declan Keane (January 26th) is concerned that the public service work to rule is in contravention of the “increased efficiencies and modernisation” criteria used to justify the benchmarking cycles. Mr Keane can rest easy in the knowledge that most public servants have lost much more in the two pay cuts of 2009 that we ever received from benchmarking. We are not laughing all the way to the bank. Indeed, the laughter is coming from within the banks nowadays. – Yours, etc,
STEPHEN MacDONAGH,
Sonesta,
Malahide,
Co Dublin.
Cut to Vanbrugh Quartet
Madam, – I have been reading about the Vanbrugh Quartet and the recent controversy over cutbacks. Michael Dervan’s comment about the amount of chamber musicians coming out of Cork in the last decade hit home (Arts, January 18th).
There is no doubt that coming in contact with Gregory Ellis at a relatively young age was vital in my development. He was in fact the first person who took my parents aside and told them I had a talent that needed nurturing. He was there for advice and I appreciate that hugely.
We hadn’t any idea about the world of professional performance and didn’t know anyone else making such a career, but what a difference it made to have these four people close at hand, people who were “normal” and approachable and helpful beyond the call of duty. Not to mention how excellent they are.
That I then ended up concentrating on chamber music is no co- incidence. I can only imagine that the generation behind me in Cork has felt that same stimulus and well, a feeling that it is possible, within reach, to play in an internationally acclaimed quartet or chamber group (in my case) and make a healthy living and career out of making music.
Being part of the West Cork Chamber Music Festival from a young age was also a turning point. Being surrounded by world-class artists like that, just down the road from where I grew up, was truly inspirational. And without the Vanbrugh, it’s unlikely that festival would be there today.
As Francis Humphrys said, they really are “good value”! What a shame if we lose them now, in their prime. – Yours, etc,
CATHERINE LEONARD,
Oak Glade,
Naas,
Co Kildare.
Electrifying public debate
Madam, – John Gibbons’s article on minimising the ongoing environmental damage of  automotive fuels by use of renewable, zero-impact electrical energy stored in batteries made for interesting reading (Opinion, January 28th). Perhaps Mr Gibbons could provide a counterpoint by explaining how the vast number of batteries to be utilised, requiring the use of finite resources extracted from the earth, and processed in an environmentally unfriendly manner, represent a best practice approach? – Yours, etc,
BARRY EDWARDS,
Blessington,
Co Wicklow.

Well I must be off

best wishes John

Cat flap

Cat Flap 29 January 2010

Busy busy day jog around the park, soooo cold, but is it getting imperceptibility less awful each day? Some people enjoy this sort of thing, in fact I can remember quite enjoying it myself back in the dim and distant past, but for not its sheer effort of will, but it pays off I an two tenths of a pound down in weight.
Breakfast and load the car with leaves I get 9 bags full in, of dripping wet dirty leaves, yes by the time I get them all cleaned up they will be starting to fall again, who would be a householder? Stop off at Sanisbury’s for some shopping, and off to the tip.
I back the car in as near to the Green skip as I can, I don’t want to carry them any more than I have to. You have to just put the leaves in the ‘garden waste’ in the skip and not the bags, so carefully, carefully I tear the garden sack and out spill the leaves, some of which blow back in my face courtesy of an idle wind. A people carrier backs in beside my car and out get the nicest sweetest old couple that you ever did see. The open their tailgate and its just the perfect height for be to bash my head on as I go back to my car to retrieve more bags of leaves. The pathway to the tip once immaculate and clean is now covered in my well rotting leaves.
I dump another bag and go back for another, neatly avoiding impaling my head on their tail gate, I begin to feel slightly virtuous, recycling giving back to the community, reusing and all that.
On my last trip the old woman approaches me with a look of alarm “don’t hit you head, don’t head your head” she warns waving her hands at me in consternation. I am quite startled by this and back away from her and yes almost but not quite hit my head.
Home, lunch sausage and egg, the sausages are two days after their best before date, but quite nice. The postman arrives, with two parcels the smart plugs for the TVs which will switch off all the ‘peripherals’ cable box, dvd player, and video recorder, when we switch off the TV itself. Its rather fun to watch everything shutting down at the same time.
Then I go to fit the cat flap, it come with a small bag of screws, yes there are British screws all right, with an infinite capacity for getting lost just when you want them. I have barely opened the parcel when one falls out of its packet and rolls merrily away under the table,and camouflaging itself almost perfectly, it takes me ten minutes to find it. The new cat flap won’t of course fit the hole left by the old car flap, so I have to file away to make it bigger, covering myself in wood shavings, but eventually I get in it, but the flap won’t flap, another go and finally, finally its in attached to the door with eight solid British screws. It has a tinted transparent flap, looks rather cool and swish.
The cats loath it on sight of course Puddy cowers in front of it “Its different! Not the same, looks different, smells different, I am not using that I’d rather die” she flounces off. Kitten stares reproachfully from outiside, at me through the glass door of the conservatory, but I am not letting her in, if I do it will take her longer to get used to the new cat flap. “Go on you can do it” I encourage her through the glass, she gives me a black look to indicate that she too would rather die, cats!

Postcards

New York from the air

North Norfolk railway Ring Haw 0-6-0

St Michaels Mount ,Cornwall, England

The original Winnie the Pooh

The Wish Tower Eastbourne Sussex, England

Obituary: J. D. Salinger: Author of The Catcher in the Rye

After receiving critical acclaim for his short story A Perfect Day for Bananafish, which was published in The New Yorker in 1948, J. D. Salinger shot to worldwide fame with his novel The Catcher in the Rye, which appeared in 1951. With its disenchanted adolescent anti-hero, perpetually at war with adulthood, especially as embodied in his own parents, it seemed to encapsulate the mood of an entire generation. Perhaps more remarkably it simultaneously exercised a considerable effect on that generation’s behaviour.
Its protagonist Holden Caulfield instantly became the symbol of teenage alienation in America and his influence spread rapidly across the Atlantic. Not merely, as is so often the case, for his own generation, but for those that followed, the character of Caulfield continued to stand for the seeming impossibility for the younger generation of communicating in any meaningful way not only with their parents but also with the friends and associates of those parents. When the Sixties opened, with teenage rebellion in Western society taking on a different hue and, under the influence of rock’n’roll, sexual emancipation and drugs, having apparently a different set of preoccupations, the gospel of Catcher in the Rye remained as potent as ever. The novel continued to sell about a quarter of a million copies a year.
Such a critical and popular success, positioning its author as it did, as the apostle of adolescence, was hard to follow. Like many authors before and after him, Salinger could hardly be expected to match it. Indeed, the rest of his creative life was not prolific and he retired to New Hampshire where, as a semi-recluse, he attempted to fend off biographers and fans. In this he was largely successful until in succession in 1999 and 2000, a former lover and the daughter of his second marriage published their memoirs which, as such things will tend to do, caused a great sensation on the score of what they revealed about Salinger’s apparent shortcomings, in the first instance as a partner in a relationship, in the second as a father.
Jerome David Salinger was born in New York in 1919, the son of a kosher cheese salesman of Polish ancestry, and his wife, who was a convert to Judaism. After attending a number of state schools, he was educated for his ninth and tenth grades at McBurney School in Manhattan, where he threw himself into acting.
But with his father determined that he should not be an actor, and his mother, as he saw it, overprotective, in 1934 he entered Valley Forge Military Academy, Pennsylvania. He spent two years there, graduating in 1936. While there he edited the academy’s yearbook Crossed Sabres. More important, in this robust and not wholey congenial ambience he began writing short stories.
He spent what he called a “happy tourist’s year” in Europe, where he had gone ostensibly to learn about the meat importing business at his father’s behest, in 1937-38. Altogether he attended three universities: New York, Ursinus College (Collegeville, Pennsylvania), and Columbia. The result of this was, he later tersely wrote, “no degrees”.
In the spring of 1942, a few months after America had been drawn into the war by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Salinger was drafted into the US Army, where he was to serve until demobilisation in 1946. After training he was posted to the 12th Infantry Regiment in the Fourth Infantry Division of the US Army — most of the time as a staff sergeant — through five campaigns. As the build-up of American forces in Britain developed apace with the preparations for the Allied invasion of occupied Europe, he was stationed in England, at Tiverton, Devon, and he was among those who landed at Utah Beach on D-Day, June 6, 1944.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article7007023.ece

Letters:

Guardian:

The damning report on income inequality by Professor Hills (Unequal Britain: richest 10% are now 100 times better off than the poorest, 27 January), makes extremely uncomfortable reading for anyone who wants a more equal society.
The results are sobering. One measure indicates that by 2008, Britain had reached the highest level of income inequality since soon after the second world war. The richest 10% are now 100 times better off than the poorest, with individuals in the top 1% of the population each possessing total household wealth of £2.6m or more. This is a wake-up call.
The growing gap between high earners and the rest of society is politically, socially and economically damaging and intolerable. While the Labour government has done a lot for those on the lowest incomes, it has been unable to reduce inequality, mainly because it has failed to halt the boom of wealth at the top. It has never been clearer that gross inequality damages not just those at the very bottom, but all within society.
This report must be a watershed moment. We can no longer afford to be intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich. We must not aspire to reduce the new top rate of tax as soon as possible. Instead we should tackle egregious pay at the top through a high pay commission, make the bankers’ windfall tax permanent and step up the commitment to a truly progressive taxation system.
Gavin Hayes, Neal Lawson, Joe Cox and Zoe Gannon Compass, John Battle MP, Clare Short MP, Richard Wilkinson University of Nottingham, Prof Kate Pickett University of York, Prof Sally Ruane De Montfort University, Heather Wakefield Unison, Ann Pettifor, Dr Martin Parker, Richard Murphy Tax Justice Network, Prof Adrian Sinfield The University of Edinburgh, Sunny Hundal Liberal Conspiracy, Professor Gregor Gall University of Hertfordshire, Mark Donne Fair Pay Network, Guy Palmer The Poverty Site, Will Straw Left Foot Forward, Prof Davina Cooper University of Kent, Sam Tarry Young Labour 
•  Professor John Hills’s report on ­inequality has evoked reactions seeking to blame the present government for the widening of the gap and the increase in inequality in a whole range of areas, driven by the Conservative government of the 1980s and early 1990s.
It is worth reflecting that, in terms of the long-term challenge to turn these enormous problems around, no child over the age of 11 has yet benefited from Sure Start, the universal nursery programme or the Child Trust Fund; and that no child over 15 has yet experienced the full benefit of the literacy and numeracy programmes. These were all put in place in the first period of the Blair government. Perhaps someone, somewhere, in 2025 will be big enough to give credit for what this government has done and is still doing.
David Blunkett MP
Labour, Sheffield Brightside
•  There will never be anything approaching equality in this country until one political party has the ­courage to abolish private schools. While we continue to separate our children from the age of four on the basis of class, wealth and religion, the gap will never be reduced. Educate all our children together, and in a generation we’d have a happier and healthier society.  
Judith Knight
London
• Bob Diamond, with his multimillion-pound bonus, pontificates at Davos (Report, January 27) on the disaster that will befall us if we impose realistic taxes on such incomes. If the £50m bonus paid to a top banker last year had instead been spread over 50,000 of the bank’s lower-paid employees, £1,000 each, much would have found its way via the shops and factories to the jobcentres. Those thus taken off the unemployed register would spend their money too, winding up the process. Wealth doesn’t trickle down – it bubbles up.
Bill Hyde
Offham, Kent
• The Red Tory agenda (No equality in opportunity, 28 January) is flawed for presuming that there are “natural” differences among people that need to be cultivated and respected for the social value they provide. Such a view rests on a 19th-century conception of biology, with its sharp divide of nature and nurture. However, both the sciences and the technologies associated with life processes have now progressed to a point where it makes no sense to talk about what people “naturally are” without socioeconomic constraints. Rather, the sense in which socioeconomic differences continue to exist and matter is something that is within our control and for which we as a society are responsible. To address this matter merely by providing incentives for the rich to feel virtuous by charitably contributing to the welfare of the poor is both politically wishful and scientifically backward. 
Steve Fuller
Professor of sociology, University of Warwick
• The Tories’ latest idea of local levels of welfare benefit (Councils could get power to set benefits, 28 January) would mark a return to the days of “going on the parish” as councils raced to cut payments either to save money or drive the poor into a neighbouring district. This isn’t a proposal to pay down the deficit; it’s an attempt to dismantle a key part of the postwar welfare state.
D Cameron
Stoke-on-Trent
• The results of the survey into British attitudes (Report, 26 January) present a real cause for concern. On the same day as new figures from Save the Children show that child poverty is getting worse, we learn that the number of people who wish to see the inequality gap narrowed is also tailing off. It’s not surprising that in times of financial hardship people’s attention focuses on their loved ones. But it’s a major shock to all those who campaign on behalf of those 1.7 million children who are living in severe poverty. If this survey holds true, their position is more vulnerable than ever. Reducing inequalities is everyone’s business. If we fail, we will all have to face the financial and social consequences for decades.
Anne Longfield

Raphaël Liogier is right to point out the problems with France’s proposed ban on the veil (Comment, 27 January, which will pave the way for similar moves against other visible expressions of religion. Shutting down the right to choose to wear the veil will only further embolden Islamophobia, the far right and fascist parties. The debate has had the net effect of demonising a minority of Muslim women, who number less than 2,000 in France. It will mean the only option for many of these women will be to stay confined to their homes. All this, ironically, in the name of integration and the liberation of women. We are one society and many cultures; respecting and allowing all cultures freedom of expression, as long as this does not impinge on the rights of others, means all communities can fully contribute to society. The debate in France is already impacting here, with Ukip calling for a ban on the burka and niqab. These issues and many others will be discussed at the Progressive London conference this Saturday.
Ken Livingstone, Susan Kramer MP, Claude Moraes MEP, Jenny Jones Green party, Cllr Salma Yaqoob, Edie Friedman Jewish Council for Racial Equality, Anas Altikiriti British Muslim Initiative, Billy Hayes General secretary, Communication Workers, Bellavia Ribeiro-Addy NUS Black Students Officer, Weyman Bennett and Sabby Dhalu Joint national secretaries, Unite Against Fascism, Lindsey German National convener, Stop the War

In your editorial (27 January), you assert that interest rate cuts have put money in families’ pockets. But those who rely on the interest from their savings have seen their income drop by 95%. Perversely, those with mortgages have seen only a modest reduction in their repayments. For every £1 interest that banks now pay to savers, they receive as much as £20 (and more) in interest from borrowers. And the banks have been able to help themselves to the new money of ­quantitative easing. No wonder they can give themselves bonuses.
David Humphrey
London
• The three bishops’ argument that the church should have “special” immunity when it comes to laws against discrimination is foul (Report, 25 January). In the past, churches argued in a ­similar vein regarding anti-apartheid and gender equality laws. Now some bishops resist protecting the happiness of that good number of people who love people of the same sex. “Special” or shameful?
The Rev Canon Mark Oakley
London
• Saddened as I was to read of Mary Daly’s death, I was further grieved by the first line of her obituary (January 28), claiming her to be “the world’s first feminist philosopher”. There are numerous feminist philosophers who predate Daly. The most obvious example forces one to beg the question: is there something about Simone de Beauvoir which makes her neither feminist nor a philosopher?
Dan O’Connor
Baltimore, Maryland, USA
• Why does it take two quarters of ­negative growth to make a recession but only one quarter of positive growth to come out of recession (Report, 26 January)?
Richard Finch
West Sussex
• Let’s not forget the former Everton player Neil Pointon, or “Disser”. His early promise wasn’t quite fulfilled, (Letters, 22 January).
Bill Marsden
London
• Fashionable = “with it”? (Quick crossword 12,389). Like, crazy man. That compiler’s so hep, I flipped my wig.
Leigh Hughes

William Shawcross repeats the familiar but false claim that Saddam had, and had used, weapons of mass destruction (Thanks to this ‘illegal’ war, Iraqis at last have real hope for the future, 27 January). What Saddam had and used – including, despicably, against Kurdish civilians at Halabja – were battlefield chemical weapons. As Robin Cook pointed out in his resignation speech in 2003, battlefield chemical weapons are not weapons of mass destruction (even if Saddam had still possessed them, which he no longer did). A weapon of mass destruction, properly so called, is one that can kill a hundred thousand or a million people in a single strike, which fortunately Saddam never possessed. It is debasing the language to use this hyperbolic term to refer to battlefield munitions, however unpleasant.
Professor David Turner
Canterbury, Kent
•  William Shawcross states that after resolution 1441, weapons inspectors were still denied unfettered access in Iraq. This is contradictory to Hans Blix’s account (Blair sold Iraq on WMD, but only regime change adds up, 15 December 2009), which says “Iraq became more co-operative and showed no defiance that could prompt the authorising of armed force”.
Bernard Duggan
Chatham, Kent
•  It is disingenuous to blame Iraqi deaths on “other Muslims”. In the first days of occupation the Coalition Provisional Authority systematically dismantled all forms of order and administration in the country. The Iraqi national guard was disbanded. Weapon dumps were left unguarded. The oil ministry was secured. It showed nothing less than a reckless disregard for human life.
Laurence Rowe
Manchester
• As Andy Beckett says in his fascinating article on the Chilcot inquiry (Called to account, G2, 28 January), “around 8am, a tiny, polite queue begins to form in the icy gloom outside the conference centre”. But why outside? The conference centre is easily large enough to accommodate the queue in the warmth inside. On the cold day we queued, the doors remained closed until an hour before the session started. Why is the public punished in this way for taking an interest?
Chris and Betty Birch
London
•  One of the most dispiriting things about Lord Goldsmith receiving ­taxpayer-funded legal advice to “help” him prepare his testimony to the Chilcot inquiry (Report, 27 January) is that it comes from a government which has systematically slashed legal aid. Any ordinary member of the public, before getting legal aid, would have to show that it was is in the interest of justice for the award to be made, and the applicant would then be means-tested. Goldsmith would be unlikely to qualify on either count.
Greg Foxsmith

Times:

Sir, Climate researchers may have “a problem in communicating uncertainty” (“Top scientist calls for honesty on climate change,” Jan 27), but the real challenge is for them to convey clearly the risks we face from rising greenhouse gas levels.
There is a significant chance that “business as usual” emissions of greenhouse gases will lead to a rise in global average temperature of 5C or more by the end of the century. We do not know exactly what the chance is, but we cannot be certain that it is zero. As such temperatures have not been seen on Earth for more than 30 million years, we cannot draw on past human experience to understand what impacts they will have. Instead we must rely on climate researchers to use the available evidence and expert judgment to inform us of the risks.
Of course, there are uncertainties in our understanding of the potential impacts, just as there are with any risks. Many policymakers across the world have used scientific uncertainty as an excuse for political inaction and delay in tackling climate change, ignoring the potential consequences for rich and poor, and allowing the risks from rising greenhouse gas levels to grow.
Some researchers have responded to political procrastination by occasionally understating uncertainties when engaging in public debate, in the hope that it will motivate timely and effective policymaking. But this tactic is a mistake and undermines public confidence when it is exposed.
It is important that climate researchers do not, after recent controversies, withdraw from public debate or become obsessed with uncertainties about the evidence at the expense of spelling out the potential consequences of rising greenhouse gas levels. Instead they should become more accomplished in explaining both clearly so that the public and policymakers can make well-informed decisions about the profound risks that climate change poses.
Bob Ward
Policy and Communications Director,
Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, LSE
Sir, As a scientist and one who also requested data from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) under the Freedom of Information Act, I am pleased that the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has found that University of East Anglia (UEA) and CRU failed in its duties under the Act (“Scientists in stolen e-mail scandal hid climate data”, Jan 28).
Two things must now happen. First, all data, adjustment procedures and computer code relating to the CRU temperature records must be released for proper scientific scrutiny and verification. Until the data is verified all published papers that rely on the CRU temperature record for their conclusions must be withdrawn as being “unproven”.
Second, Professor Phil Jones, the unit’s director, must do the honourable thing and resign. Failing that, he must be dismissed if UEA and CRU are to retain any scientific credibility.
Dr Don Keiller
Deputy Head of Life Sciences,
Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge

Peter Cressall wrote:
Hanus Wolf: About the same chance that the carbon emission Cassandras are right then. Should I be as excited as they are?
January 29, 2010 1:28 AM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Hanus Wolf wrote:
Mr Cressall, your chance of winning the lottery is 14 million to 1. I hope you are excited now.
January 29, 2010 12:12 AM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Christopher Wood wrote:
Bob Ward- there is no controversy. There is however, fact. That lies have been told, records have been altered; that attempts have been made to hide undesired data; that non peer reviewed papers have been used and in general every attempt has been made to promote AGW. Nothing controversial about that!
January 28, 2010 10:44 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Mike Brannan wrote:
“..emissions of greenhouse gases will lead to a rise in global average temperature of 5C or more by the end of the century…. such temperatures have not been seen on Earth for more than 30 million years”

Where did you get that figure of 5C from? Did you just make it up? In fact temperatures were higher than that just 7,500 years ago, according to the infamous IPPC’s Artic Climate Impact Assessment report (2005). In section 2.7.4.2. it states “.. the mean July temperature along the northern coastline of Russia may have been 2.5 to 7.0 ºC warmer than present….climatic conditions in the early Holocene were significantly warmer there than today (Stewart, 1988). Glaciers had retreated past present-day termini in some areas by 7.5 ky BP…..Marine mammals and boreal molluscs were present far north of their present-day range by 7.5 to 6.5 ky BP, as were many species of plants between 9.2 and 6.7 ky BP (Dyke et al., 1996, 1999).Caribou were able to survive in the northernmost valleys of Ellesmere Island and Peary Land by 8.5 ky BP or earlier. Such evidence indicates very warm conditions early in the Holocene (before 8 ky BP)”

OK, so no one believes the IPCC anymore.

Sir, Whatever the merits of the Kay Gilderdale case (“Jury frees ME mother”, Jan 26), when the CPS makes a poor decision to prosecute, thousands of pounds of legal aid money is wasted. The legal aid budget has been frozen for several years. This year many firms and advice agencies have run out of money to help people with problems related to family breakdown, housing, benefits and debts.
There is a direct causal link between bad decisions by the CPS and ordinary people being unable to receive help on social welfare law problems. The Government needs to protect legal aid from the costs of other people’s mistakes and misjudgments.
Roy Morgan
Chair of Legal Aid Practitioners Group

Peter Cressall wrote:
Help people with problems related to family breakdown, housing, benefits (aka charity) and debts? These people are allowed to vote. Let them work out their own problems.

Sir, Regarding Lord Goldsmith’s lamentable performance (“US government lawyers changed my mind on legality of war, Goldsmith tells Chilcot”, Jan 28), no self-respecting lawyer gives an opinion without taking into account the views of all others who have an interest in the outcome, as I know having been a lawyer for more than 40 years and a part-time judge for 15 years. Lord Goldsmith has admitted that he did not consider, for example, the views of the French on the legality of proceeding without a second UN resolution. This highlights the need to rethink the role of government law officers. Their independence as lawyers is inevitably compromised and thereby serves the country ill. Should they not, like judges, be entirely independent and not exposed to improper pressure?
Ian Wilson
Shoreham by Sea, W Sussex
Sir, Something is fundamentally wrong in the way our democracy works if all it takes is one man to change his mind for a war to become legal.
Mark Glanville
Bristol
Sir, You report (Jan 27) the opinion of Sir Michael Wood, the Foreign Office’s chief legal adviser at the time of the Iraq invasion, that the notion that a second UN Security Council resolution was not required was “completely wrong from a legal point of view”.
Like Jack Straw, who rejected Sir Michael’s advice, I do not practise in public international law. But I wonder about the merits of a system of law that, according to Sir Michael, would term an action legal if voted for by a majority of a Security Council including, at the time, a despotic Syrian dictator, a corrupt Government of Angola and the communist leaders of China, but illegal otherwise.
David Wolfson, QC
One Essex Court, Temple,
London EC4
Sir, What weight can be put on Tony Blair’s words today if he does not have to swear to tell the truth to the Iraq inquiry? In the most modest magistrates’ court in the land, witnesses to even minor misdemeanours are required to swear on oath or affirm before giving evidence. Can we regard Mr Blair’s answers as evidence? They certainly won’t be testimony. If the Chilcot witnesses merely have to sign a transcript of their appearance, and can alter words if they choose, the committee’s deliberations will be less informed than they might have been.
Michael Cole
Laxfield, Suffolk
Sir, How deliciously thoughtful and incisive was Elizabeth Wilmshurst’s calm and compelling testimony (report, Jan 27) at the Chilcot inquiry. She puts to shame all the devious and double-dealing politicians and was the only senior civil servant with the integrity to resign over something she saw as illegal. If she’s free, could she be persuaded to stand for Parliament?
Jenny Baker
Bishops Stortford, Herts

Alex D. wrote:
Are there really lawyers who have self-respect, Ian Wilson? We should have them framed.

Sir, Much talk of “social mobility” and a classless society (report, Jan 27) is as futile as trying to control the weather. Experiments to make us all equal have failed in Communist Russia and terrifyingly in Nazi Germany. Of course there must be no barriers for people from any background to achieve finanancial and social status, but in the end, it must be recognised, even a welfare state cannot help those at the bottom of the ladder who fail to help themselves. Before we had a welfare state, many thousands of people achieved great success in life but only through their own and parental efforts. Perhaps too much welfare state has killed ambition.
W. Wolff
London W11

Thomas Hope wrote:
Before Stanley corrects my typos again,
the word is “Caribbean”
January 28, 2010 11:12 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Thomas Hope wrote:
I left the North East in the 60’s, when it still had thriving heavy industry and coalfields, to take up my first overseas assignment in the Ciribbean.
Over 30 years later we decided to settle back in the NE. There were two striking differences.

Industry and coalfields had given way to beautiful unspoilt countryside.

The vibrant working atmosphere had given way, in a significant sector of the population, to a benefits culture – no work ethic and thus no personal progress. Fault of the people but also of the system which made it so easy.
January 28, 2010 6:05 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Peter Cressall wrote:
Thank you for stating the obvious, W.Wolf.

Sir, The Oxford mafia (leading article, Jan 23)? Why such a criminal connotation for people who have chosen to combine personal achievement and public service through political life? They do not belong to a secret society of Oxford alumni working against the public interest. This perceived problem should not be laid at the door of the university, which has merely selected bright students and educated them well.
Keith Bywater
Cork

Peter Cressall wrote:
The fact that they have turned out badly cannot be blamed on Oxford, I agree.

Sir, I live less than five miles from Matthew Parris in the Peak District, and can assure him that the reason our London guests drink tap water here is that they cannot believe its wondrous clarity and sublime taste (“Still waters”, My Week, Jan 28).
No one with any palate at all, however “smart” and “metropolitan”, would dream of drinking tap water when in London.
David Simons
Bakewell, Derbyshire

Peter Cressall wrote:
Thomas Hope: Have you seen what Coca-Cola does to the plumbing?
January 29, 2010 1:32 AM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Thomas Hope wrote:
Very chuffed to have been given a couple of years in an apartment next to St. James Park – everything new and plush, but as soon as London water touched the stainless steel it left deposits which I hope were inorganic.
January 28, 2010 11:21 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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stanley cohen wrote:
As opposed, Peter, to Badoit, which tastes and smells like untreated sewage.
January 28, 2010 7:35 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Arthur Nowr wrote:
There is nothing wrong with London tap water. After all, it has been filtered and purified by at least six pairs of kidneys.
January 28, 2010 6:21 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Peter Cressall wrote:
I believe that London tap water is purified sewage, only appreciated by those with a taste for the bizarre.

Sir, Richard Morrison’s article on throwaway technology (times2, Jan 27) is sadly so true. I had difficulty finding cartridges for my three-year-old printer. The whole set of six cost me £71, for which I could have got a new printer and still have change. A far cry from my experience in the last war, when we were taught to “make do and mend”.
Joan Rew
Colchester, Essex

stanley cohen wrote:
You see, Peter, that’s what’s wrong with British industry. Too expensive.
January 28, 2010 6:34 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Peter Cressall wrote:
I tried to have my coffee-grinder fixed in England. I was told, 30 pounds to look at it. A new one cost 25 pounds.

Sir, A friend who has MS saw an unaccompanied driver park in the one free disabled bay at a hospital (“Disabled driver’s ramming fine”, News in Brief, Jan 25). Frustrated, she left a note on his windscreen: “You have taken my parking slot. Would you like my disability?” Cheaper than ramming, and more effective.
Chris Willis
Brookmans Park, Herts

Peter Cressall wrote:
My boots are made of calf, Stanley. Yours must be a bit rough on the feet.
January 28, 2010 8:43 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Nick Davies wrote:
Yep, that showed them.
January 28, 2010 6:27 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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stanley cohen wrote:
Anyone that selfish and inconsiderate probably possesses the hide of a rhinoceros to boot.

Sir, Let us hope that the scientists who wish to invite aliens here (Commentary, Jan 26, and letter, Jan 28) bear in mind how we civilised beings once treated the indigenous populations of, say, the Americas.
Graham Scott
Swettenham, Cheshire
Sir, As the cartoonist Bill Watterson once observed: “The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us.”
Robert Saunders
Balcombe, W Sussex

stanley cohen wrote:
You imagine none of us had noticed, Peter?
January 28, 2010 9:14 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Peter Cressall wrote:
Speak for yourself, Stanley. They talk to me all the time.
January 28, 2010 8:48 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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stanley cohen wrote:
“The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us.”

Cleverest quotation I’ve seen in yonks.

Telegraph:

SIR – There are parallels in international law between the lead-up to the Suez Canal and Iraq interventions.
In his book, No End of a Lesson: the Story of Suez, Anthony Nutting wrote of Britain’s early decision to regain the nationalised Suez Canal from Egypt: “My suggestion that at least the Foreign Office legal adviser, Sir Gerald Fitzmaurice should be brought in on a matter which involved taking the law into our own hands met with the flattest of negatives. ‘Fitz is the last person I want consulted,’ Eden retorted. ‘The lawyers are always against us doing anything. For God’s sake keep them out of it. This is a political affair’.”

Richard Connaughton
Bridport, Dorset
SIR – When did this concept of “legal” wars enter the political world? Was the Second World War legal?
An illegal war may be a good stick to beat Tony Blair with, but are we entering a phase when wars are to be sanctioned only by smug international lawyers?
—
Watch Tony Blair’s long-awaited appearance before the Iraq Inquiry into the 2003 invasion of Iraq LIVE from 10am GMT on Friday 29 January 2010.
—
David Davies
Mamhead, Devon
SIR – A question for Mr Blair and those who expatiate on Saddam being a brutal dictator and the world better without him: why was he not removed in the 1980s?
He was a brutal dictator then, yet Britain and America turned a blind eye because it suited them – and were happy to sell him weapons, which he used against his own people as well as Iranian soldiers.
Stephen Parker
Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire
SIR – As Jack Straw seems often to have been advised that things were unlawful yet went ahead with them anyway, why not dismiss government legal advisers as a waste of money?
It is tempting to wonder whether this contempt for professional legal advice is the reason why so many acts of this Government are found to be unlawful when tested before the courts.
John Weatherill
Skipton, North Yorkshire
SIR – Reading your report on Jack Straw’s refusal to accept advice from specialist lawyers, one wonders whether such a person was a proper person to run the Justice Ministry?
Roderick Wright
Barnet, Hertfordshire
SIR – Next time I get a parking ticket I shall point out to the warden that I have parked illegally “time and time again” and tell him that he is “being dogmatic” and send him off to “reflect further”.
Dr Derek Gregory
Castle Cary, Somerset
SIR – Remember that respondents to the Chilcot Inquiry are not under oath.
Bill Allen
Plymouth, Devon
Chinese corpses in Britain
SIR – This week sees the finale of an exhibition of preserved Chinese corpses in Birmingham, called Bodies Revealed.
The exhibition was organised by an American company, Premier Exhibitions, which had a show blocked by the Russian authorities in 2007.
In 2008, after a law suit, the company carried a disclaimer for its New York exhibition, stating that these were “human remains of Chinese citizens or residents which were originally received by the Chinese Bureau of Police. The Chinese Bureau of Police may receive bodies from Chinese prisons. Premier cannot independently verify that the human remains you are viewing are not those of persons who were incarcerated in Chinese prisons.”
No such disclaimer, nor even the country of origin, was present at the Birmingham exhibition.
It is worth noting that China executes more people than any other country, including those convicted of non-violent offences such as tax evasion. Yet the Human Tissue Authority has confirmed that this exhibition was legal as “the consent requirements do not apply” for imported tissue. It was satisfied on the origins of the tissue based on an affidavit in Chinese.
We urge the Government to amend the Human Tissue Act so that the rules for informed consent apply equally to imported as to exported tissue, especially where tissue has been acquired from a country with a poor human rights record.
Dr David Nicholl
Consultant Neurologist
Dr Fouad Siddiqui
Consultant Geriatrician
Dr Nigel Langford
Consultant Physician
Dr Fouad Siddiqui
Consultant Geriatrician
Dr Nigel Langford
Consultant Physician
Dr Colin Fink
GP
Dr Swarupsinh Chavda
Consultant Neuroradiologist
Dr Edmund Dunstan
Consultant Geriatrician
Dr Jonathan Treml
Consultant Geriatrician
Dr Omer Moghraby
GP
Dr Christopher Dyer
Consultant Geriatrician
Dr James Lavin
GP
Dr Phil Bennett
Molecular Biologist
Dr Andy Thompson
GP, West Bromwich
Dr Imtiaz Ahmed
GP, West Bromwich
Dr Robert McFadyen
Consultant Cardiologist
Dr Richard Murrin
Consultant Haematologist
Dr John Ross
GP
Dr Annette Neary
Consultant Physician
Dr Donna Hall
Consultant Anaesthetist
Dr Mike Douglas
Consultant Neurologist
Dr James Miller
Consultant Neurologist
Dr K Wales
Dr Andrew O’Brien
Mr Donald Whitaker
Dr Sara Furness
Dr Brendan O’Reilly
Retired GP
Dr Richard Nicholl
Consultant Paediatrician
Christina Monroe
Dr Alexandra Cottam
Dr H Robertson
Claire Brown
Dr Rupert Beale
Dr Grant Ingrams
Ian Street
Dr Simon Knowles
Consultant Pathologist
Dr Tom Heafield
Consultant Neurologist
Dr Louise Pealing
Dr Jane Hill
GP
Dr Farnaz Parvizi
Oral Surgeon
Dr Peter Gooderham
Dr Majid Katme
GP
Dr David Gold
Psychiatrist
Dr Lesley Wilson
Dr Dougall McCorry
Consultant Neurologist
Dr Jonathan Hulme
Anna-Maria Shiels
Christopher Wayne
Consultant Obstetrician
Dr Santhana Kannan
Dr David Carruthers
Consultant Rheumatologist
Dr Stuart Hutchinson
Consultant Geriatrician
Dr Hatem Abusriwil
Dr James Geoghegan
Dr Nandan Gautam
Dr Julian Cooper
Dr Richard Thompson
Consultant Respiratory Physician
Dr Peter Hewins
Dr Andy Toogood
Consultant Physician
Rachel Sam
Consultant Vascular Surgeon
Dr Allan Thomas
Consultant Neuroradiologist
Dr Angela Luck
Stanley Silverman
Consultant Vascular Surgeon
Dr Deborah Turfey
Consultant Anaesthetist
Dr Arul Sivaguru
Consultant Neurologist
Dr Nick Sherwood
Consultant Anaesthetist
Dr Peter Doyle
Consultant in Emergency Medicine
Dr Isabelle Hero
Mr Mike Burdon
Consultant Neuro-ophthalmologist
Dr Jeremy Wilson
Dr Fiona Clark
Mr K Subramonian
Dr Darius Mirza
Dr Alastair Robertson
Olga Tucker
Dr Jenny Vaughan
Consultant Neurologist
Matt Dunkley
Surgeon
Wind turbine noise
SIR – Your report (January 28) that noise from wind farms can affect some people more than others accords with my own experience as a GP practising for 30 years within four miles of Portland dockyard.
A very few of my patients complained bitterly about the continuous hum of generators and other machinery which came from the dockyard day and night. They said that it kept them awake and made them feel ill. Several had to move away from the area because of it.
Most people were entirely oblivious to it and couldn’t understand what the fuss was about. I believe that there are certain frequencies of noise to which certain individuals are especially sensitive and wind generators can produce such sensitivity in certain people.
J. C. E. Parkinson
Weymouth, Dorset
Ulster ministers’ pay
SIR – A more realistic answer to resolve the dispute in the Northern Ireland Executive (Leading article, January 27) would be to suspend its members’ salaries and expenses until they do their jobs. If they aren’t capable of resolving their problems, they don’t deserve to be paid.
Alan Kibblewhite
Blandford, Dorset
London (Calais)
SIR – David Teale’s suggestion that a new London airport be built outside Calais (Letters, 28 January) will surely gain immediate support from Ryanair.
They could then offer cheap flights from London (Calais) to Paris (Calais) without the plane having to leave the ground.
Neil Protheroe
Upper Heyford, Oxfordshire
Privacy v public interest
SIR – Philip Davies MP (report, January 28) is quoted saying: “I’m disturbed that injunctions are being granted willy-nilly to the wealthy and powerful. We are in a position where the very rich can stop any publicity they don’t like.”
This is complete nonsense. To get a privacy injunction, the Human Rights Act requires you to show that you are likely to win the case. This is much higher test than that for ordinary interim injunctions. Wealth does not come into it. The courts balance an individual’s right to privacy against the need for the information to come out in the public interest. They apply an “intense focus” to the question. There’s nothing willy-nilly about it.
It is worrying that an MP, particularly a member of the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee, should have such a poor understanding of the law on which his committee is about to report.
Max Mosley
Monaco
Keeping NI numbers safe
SIR – Your report (“Hand over your NI number to get a vote”, January 23) was unduly alarmist. Electoral registration is the bedrock of our democracy, and it is important that it is as secure as possible. It should also be each person’s individual right and responsibility to register to vote.
The Electoral Commission supports the introduction of individual electoral registration, which received cross-party support in Parliament.
As part of our independent assessment of how the Government introduces it, we will want to be sure that all personal data is properly protected. That includes ensuring National Insurance numbers are kept securely and confidentially.
Jenny Watson
Chairman, Electoral Commission
London SW1
No masters of irony
SIR — While applauding the staunch defence of Admiral Byng by his collateral descendants (Letters, January 26) I would be sad to lose that enduring quotation from Voltaire’s Candide, referring to this affair three years later in 1759.
Surely, few schoolmasters have not, at some time or other, resorted to justifying their ire in front of pupils by using the expression: “Il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les autres.”
Richard Hopking
Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
The egg-pickers who failed the character test
SIR – When I went to secretarial college in London in 1947, eggs were of course rationed, but my mother in Essex had her own geese, ducks and hens, so eggs were plentiful.
On weekends home, I was sometimes accompanied by the current boyfriend, who was delighted to be offered an egg or two at breakfast.
What he did not know was that beady eyes were fixed on him to see how the egg was broached (Letters, January 28). If he was an “egg-picker” he failed the test.
Prudence Seddon
Stourton Caundle, Dorset
SIR – I can help correspondents speed up their boiled-egg eating.
I use a brilliantly engineered hi-tech gizmo comprising a stainless-steel cap, with a sharpish inner edge and a rod protruding vertically, down which a heavy ball slides.
Sit the cap on the egg, and let the ball fall from its carefully researched height (so many meganeutrons are required), thwack on to your egg, and a neat line is cut around the edge.
Off the top comes with a neat edge and no broken bits of shell. Always a pleasure to use – it was discovered on the internet.
Alison Barnes
Poundstock, Devon
SIR – Never mind real eggs, I note that the yolks in Cadbury’s Creme Eggs are smaller than ever before. Is this part of a Government healthier-eating scheme?
H. W. Wood
Manchester

Irish Times:

Church’s role in primary schools
Madam, – Two priests were very quick off the mark to defend Catholic control of our primary schools against the Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI opinion poll. Fr Andrew Carvill pointed out that in Fermoy there were six Catholic and one Church of Ireland primary school, obviously to show that this represented choice. Figures from the CSO show that there are more atheists in Ireland than Church of Ireland members, so where can a non-believer in Fermoy get a primary education free from Bronze-Age indoctrination?
Ultimately what these priests are defending is the right of supernatural churches to continue the almost compulsory indoctrination of children in State-sponsored schools by public servants and totally at the taxpayers’ expense.
This is an invisible subsidy the State gifts the churches every year to the tune of hundreds of millions of euro a year and it makes sure that priests will have a livelihood for many years to come. – Yours, etc,
GAVIN TOBIN,
Celbridge, Co Kildare.
Madam, – Bishop Leo O’Reilly, Fr Seán McDonagh and Fr Andrew Carvill (Opinion and Letters, January 28th) are loud in their criticism of recent articles in The Irish Timeson church control of State-funded primary schools in Ireland, and in particular of the recent poll which seemed to indicate a majority in favour of a religiously neutral State school system.
The result of the poll in question is irrelevant. Church control of State-funded primary schools should end because it is fundamentally inequitable and because the domination of one religion in the sector is ultimately damaging to all of them.
When any organisation has the management of 92 per cent of our primary schools, then that organisation can truly be defined as dominant.
Domination ultimately and inexorably leads to a disregard for the concerns of others. This is shown in the proliferation of Catholic religious symbolism and in the permeation of Catholic principles though all relevant subjects in State-funded primary schools in Ireland. It is impossible for the children of non-Catholics not to suffer indoctrination under such circumstances.
Domination leads to legal anomaly, as evidenced by the exclusion of Catholic schools from certain sections of EU non-discrimination legislation.
Domination leads to contradiction, as when Bishop Leo O’Reilly argues for parental choice while denying exactly that to anyone who does not adhere to his religion.
The framers of the US constitution saw the dangers of religious domination. For that reason they instituted the establishment clause, which has been interpreted by successive US Supreme Court judges as providing a solid wall between religion, of all hues, and the state in public matters. As Fintan O’Toole has pointed out, one of the champions of this principle at the time was the Catholic Church in America because it did not want, itself, to suffer domination. Catholicism flourishes in the United States as a result.
Apologists for the current system of national schools here should study the US experience, particularly in the context of an enlightened and increasingly polyglot modern Irish population. – Yours, etc,
SEAMUS McKENNA,
Farrenboley Park,
Windy Arbour,
Dublin 14.
Responding to mental health
Madam, – This week the CSO published the full results of the 2006 National Disability Survey (Home News, January 28th). These results give rise to serious concerns about the lives of people with a mental health problem. In a number of key areas, the study found people with emotional, psychological or mental disabilities face the most difficulties of any group with a disability.
These results strongly indicate the need for a range of departments other than the Department of Health to take more responsibility for responding to mental health.
Among the most concerning findings were that just under two-thirds (63 per cent) of adults whose main disability was mental- health-related experienced difficulty because of the attitudes of others. This highlights the impact of stigma and discrimination. It also revealed that nearly three-quarters of people with mental health difficulties left their previous jobs because of their disability – the highest figure for any disability – and yet half of the adults not currently in work said they would be interested in starting work if the circumstances were right. Work is often the key to recovery.
This report follows the recent findings by Association for Higher Education Access and Disability (Ahead) which revealed that one- third of employees would not feel comfortable working with someone who had depression or an anxiety disorder, while almost four-fifths (78 per cent) thought that there was stigma in the workplace.
Furthermore, the National Disability Survey found that just over half of those with mental health difficulties reported that they had stopped education due to their disability, a significantly higher proportion than any other disability.
These findings clearly reveal that mental health is not just a “health” issue – it requires a whole society approach and action from Government departments which cover housing, employment, education, income and community affairs.
Ireland has signed the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which protects the human rights of all those with disabilities, including people with mental health difficulties. This survey underlines the crucial need for it to be ratified as soon as possible. – Yours, etc,
COLM O’GORMAN,
Executive Director, Amnesty
International Ireland,
Westmoreland Street, Dublin 2.
Weighing up the minimum wage
Madam, – Your Dáil report on the minimum wage (Home News, January 27th) carries the sub-heading: “Gilmore calls on Government to ‘come off the fence’ and assure there will be no cut”. A timely call, in view of the ongoing Government spin on such cuts.
But why is there no all-party unity to find even the suggestion of such a cut totally reprehensible? Why, following the self-destruction of the PD party, do we now have a Fianna Fáil-Green-exPD Coalition Government hell bent on outdoing any assault on the threshold of decency that the PDs might have been accused of in their heyday? Indeed, it was the then tánaiste and PD leader Mary Harney who introduced the minimum wage. True, she did not take on board the recommendation of the Government-appointed Minimum Wage Commission that such a rate should be set at two-thirds of median earnings. Had this happened, a rate of between €10.30 and €10.80 an hour should have been set in July 2007.
The rate set, €8.65, did no more than ensure that the value of the minimum wage first introduced in April 2000 was brought into line with average earnings increases occurring since then. Had Ms Harney’s original criteria continued to prevail, that rate should have been raised to €9.06 in July 2009.
The minimum wage, however, remained frozen at its July 2007 level, while another of Ms Harney’s original set of minimum wage principles was shamelessly violated in the interim. In 2001 the then PD tánaiste rightly proclaimed it was inappropriate to hit those on the minimum wage with any income tax on such meagre earnings. Nonetheless, as a result of last May’s income levy measures, the Fianna Fáil-Green- Harney Government has already cut the living standards of minimum wage earners by 2 per cent, leaving them with take-home pay of no more than €8.48 an hour. Any suggestion to hit the lowest of low paid workers with even more cuts should therefore be greeted with universal outrage no less than healthy contempt. – Yours, etc,
MANUS O’RIORDAN,
Head of Research,
Siptu,
Liberty Hall, Dublin 1.
Heading North out of necessity
Madam, – As a clerical officer within the civil service it is with quiet dignity that I unleash my own private war against my own Government.
I encourage everyone whose purse has been pilfered by this same Government to do likewise. In particular, I cannot afford doctors, dentists, pharmacists on my salary. I am forced Northward to avail of these humane services and the rest of my disposable income goes with me. Be aware that once one has availed of these Northern services there is no coming back. – Yours, etc,
EMER BROOKS,
Whitestown Way,
Tallaght, Dublin 24.
Action over head shops
Madam, – What does it take to make the Government see the harm that drugs being sold by head shops are doing? People have spoken up and said that sometimes the effects of these drugs can last for months, even years. By all means, such drugs could be regulated, but they should be removed in the meantime. Would you spend €50 on bath salts? Would you go to Woodies at 3am to buy “plant feeder”? Of course not. Action is needed. – Yours, etc,
OONAGH HODKINSON,
Oaklands,
Greystones,
Co Wicklow.
Plumbing for water savings
Madam, – The average person consumes 150 litres of water per day, of which 80 litres are used for cooking, drinking, showering, etc. The other 70 litres are used to flush toilets and wash clothes.
A simple rearrangement of domestic plumbing systems, particularly for houses under construction, could ensure that water for toilets, laundry, car-washing and gardening comes from harvested rainwater, of which there are various systems, and not from expensively treated local authority water.
More than 100,000 litres of rainwater flows over the average roof each year. With the imminent arrival of domestic water charges and the huge cost incurred by local authorities in treating water, a simple change in our plumbing systems could mean a large saving for all. – Yours, etc,
BRIAN QUIGLEY,
Coyne’s Cross,
Ashford,
Co Wicklow.
Flaws in ’smart’ green economy
Madam, – Tom Bruton (January 28th) is correct to highlight the huge contradiction at the heart of the recently introduced carbon tax.
Biofuels lower Ireland’s carbon emissions. They are “green” and renewable. And they are produced from waste that other companies throw away, thereby diverting this waste away from landfill or other treatments and making them useful again.
For example, the biodiesel produced by Green Biofuels Ireland in Co Wexford is made predominately from used cooking oil. Converting this waste to biodiesel reduces Ireland’s carbon emissions by 90,000 tonnes annually.
Astonishingly, however, under the new carbon tax the overwhelming majority of biofuels that consumers purchase will be taxed as if they were conventional petrol or diesel. This makes no sense and contradicts Government environmental policies.
Consumers who use biofuels, and reduce their carbon emissions, should not then be penalised with a carbon tax. – Yours, etc,
NICK TIERNEY,
Chief Executive,
Green Biofuels Ireland,
New Ross,
Wexford.
Controversy over Slane bypass
Madam, – This correspondent supports the campaign launched by Vincent Salafia (January 26th) to re-route the proposed Slane bypass to the west of the village and as far away as possible from the most historic heritage sites around Newgrange.
The National Roads Authority seems to be intent on endangering the most precious heritage sites in the country to satisfy the national obsession with car ownership and the building of more and bigger roads.
Increasingly, we seem to live in a country ruled by complete philistines. Protect our heritage, protect Newgrange: re-route the Slane bypass. – Yours, etc,
HUGH McFADDEN,
Clareville Road,
Dublin 6W.
Count me in
Madam, – Surely the best way to judge support for the Catholic Church would be to look at the numbers attending Mass, rather than the more convoluted method of reintroducing tithes and looking at the numbers who go to court in order to leave the church and stop paying the tithe, as suggested by Andrew Peregrine (January 28th)? – Yours, etc,
GRAHAM KAVANAGH,
Brookwood Meadow,
Artane,
Dublin 5.
Killing embryos in stem-cell research
Madam, – I read with disappointment the criticism by Dr Dolores Dooley (a philosopher) of Prof William Reville’s (a biochemist) views of the science of embryo research (January 28th).
The truth of Prof Reville’s assertion that ethically uncontroversial adult stem-cell research has paid back handsomely is to be seen daily in our hospitals; despite more than a decade of research, embryonic stem-cell research has not led to any therapy. Indeed, even its supporters tacitly admit that the value of embryonic stem-cell research is now less in terms of curing disease in the near future and more in terms of basic developmental biology. Such fundamental research is very valuable and important but alternatives to the use of human embryos exist in the form of ethically uncomplicated induced pluripotent stem cells (essentially “reprogrammed” skin cells).
Prof Reville’s central point was that it is a simple, if uncomfortable, fact of biology that the embryo is a living human being, albeit at the earliest stage of development. Indeed, Dr Dooley’s own Irish Council for Bioethics has acknowledged this fact, although it concluded that embryos lacked “full moral status” to save them from deliberate destruction through experimentation.
Bearing in mind legislation to protect animals used in experimentation, by a combination of judicial fiat and legislative inertia, the human embryo now literally has less protection under Irish law than does a laboratory rat.
The Government should legislate as a matter of urgency to afford protection from deliberate destruction to human embryos as exists for human beings at all other stages of the continuum of life. As Prof Reville rightly pointed out, such protection need not be incompatible with IVF. – Yours, etc,
Prof PLH McSWEENEY
PhD DSc,
School of Food and Nutritional
Sciences,
University College Cork.
College Road, Cork.
Helping the people of Haiti
Madam, – Unfortunately the statement “Haiti still owes . . $296 million to Venezuela” (Editorial, January 27th) is inaccurate.
This debt was officially cancelled by the Venezuelan government on January 25th.
Haiti’s debt to Venezuela was $295 million, which was mainly due to Venezuela for the oil it supplied to Haiti under its preferential oil pricing scheme through Petrocaribe, a continental programme funded by Venezuela to help alleviate poverty in the region and to aid member nations to overcome the problems of high oil prices and the volatility of such prices.
In addition, Venezuela has also sent to Haiti an advance team of doctors, search and rescue experts as well as food. So far Venezuela has sent 616 tons of food aid and 116 tons of equipment, including water purification systems, electrical generators and heavy equipment for moving rubble. A tanker with 225,000 barrels of diesel fuel and gasoline (worth approximately $18 million) was shipped from Venezuela last Sunday.
Regarding the debt with Haiti, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said, “Haiti has no debt with Venezuela – on the contrary, it is Venezuela that has a historic debt with Haiti.” Mr Chavez was referring to the support that Haiti – which obtained its independence from France in 1804 – gave Venezuelan independence leader Simon Bolivar in 1815 and 1816 in his quest to free his own country from Spanish colonial rule. – Yours, etc,
SAMUEL MONCADA,
Venezuelan Ambassador,
Cromwell Road,
London, England.
Aer Lingus Regional revisited
Madam, – As a student in the early 1960s, I was lucky enough to get a summer vacation job working in Aer Lingus. In those days Dublin Airport was a hub before the term was even invented. The quickest and most convenient access to the United States from many regional UK airports was through Dublin with the short-haul, cross-channel Aer Lingus routes, operated by modestly-sized turbo-prop aircraft, acting as feeders for the company’s transatlantic services to New York and Boston. The announcement of the launch of the “Aer Lingus Regional” franchise (Business Today, January 27th) seems to suggest that it’s back to the future for our national flag-carrier airline. So what happened in the intervening half century? – Yours, etc,
Prof CONAL HOOPER.
Foster Avenue,
Mount Merrion,
Co Dublin.
Left, right, left
Madam, – Owen Corrigan (Opinion, January 25th) has not, I think, added any clarity to the question of right or left, simply following the path of identifying people with opinions with which he disagrees as being right-wing.
I do agree that “humans fail and humans sometimes need assistance to do the things they could not otherwise do” but fail to see how this recognition defines one as left or right wing.
Mr Corrigan seems to insinuate that it is only those he considers left wing who believe in a society of fairness and compassion, both sadly lacking nowadays.   As a Christian I believe in such a society and strive as best I can to promote it.
To this end I do not qualify as left or right wing.   I am opposed to the killing of the unborn and, in fact, to any killing, and I campaign against abortion and the death penalty.   I take part in pro-life marches and I also took part in the two marches against the invasion of Iraq.  Therefore, according to Mr Corrigan, I must be pretty much mixed up indeed!   – Yours, etc,
MARY STEWART,
Ardeskin,
Donegal.

Well I must be off

best wishes John

Still gardening

Still Gardening 28 January 2010

So cold first thing in the morning, my breath like fog, the air clear and bright. Busy too, normally I am alone on my jog around Roundhay park but today I am accompanied by people off to catch their bus and dog walkers. Though dog walkers might be a bit of a misnomer, humans, at least I think they are human its difficult to tell as they are enveloped in multitudinous layers, as if in a Michelin Man competition, Rover strains at the end of the lead, looking like a small tug towing a great liner. I puff and pant an gasp with aching legs, this is supposed to be doing me good, and finally I arrive safe and sound back home.
I put on some bread to bake and some sausage, bacon, red cabbage, squash, mushroom, and garlic to stew in the slow cooker for our tea tonight, the smells compete, one moment as you walk through the kitchen you are enveloped in the aroma of baking bread, Ciabatta today, a step and its bacon and sausage, delicious. Soup for lunch and we watch the news slimy, slippery Goldsmith at the Iraq inquiry, a lawyers lawyer.
Rain threatens, rattling a few hard drops on the conservatory roof, just to show we mean business. But it holds off while I do the leaves, leaves, leaves leaves, leaves in my sleep, leaves in my dreams most of my day is sweeping and shoveling up leaves. You can toil in the back garden for a solid hour with the sweat glistening on your brow, and when with aching back you turn around to survey your work, I can guarantee it just looks the same. An hour a day sweeping just to keep the place looking the same. Well almost the same, I can in my brighter moments detect a slight improvement.
Then its upstairs to fit a new plug for the computers, this one switches off the peripherals when you turn your computer off, so when it is turned off everything, monitor, speakers, and printer is switched off as well, all this in the name of saving energy, and from British Gas of all people too! Though why they designed the thing with a bright, somewhat sickly, green light to shine all the time is beyond me. Lets hope that as promised on the box the energy savings will be fantastic, still every little helps.
Last episode of Coast series four, its Fred Astaire tomorrow, but what is this, in a brief casual aside the end of a metaphor the Forth bridge http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forth_Railway_Bridge It has been painted continuously since it was opened in 1890, and has always been a metaphor for a permanent job which has to done over and over again. When they finish they go back to the start and start painting all over again. Not any more, ‘new paint technology’ means that it won’t have to be painted for twenty years. Now where can I get some of that paint? Mary soundly trounces me at Scrabble

Postcards

Postcrossing card from the Netherlands, rough country!

Down-a-Long, Clovelly, Devon, England

Gunton Hall, Lowestoft Suffolk, England

How the lake district was formed

Winchester Cathedral from the east, Winchester, Hampshire, England

Obituary: June Paterson-Brown: chief commissioner of the Girl Guides

June Paterson-Brown was a pioneer of family planning, a chief commissioner of the Girl Guides for Scotland, the UK and the Commonwealth and the first female Lord Lieutenant in Scotland, serving as the Queen’s representative for Roxburgh, Ettrick and Lauderdale from 1998 to 2007.
June Garden was born in Edinburgh, educated at Esdale College and read medicine at the Edinburgh Medical School. After graduating in 1955 she was a junior houseman at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. In 1957 she married Dr Peter Paterson-Brown, and they moved to the Borders town of Hawick, where she was active in many medical charities.
She promoted family planning clinics in Hawick and was closely associated with the Well Women’s clinic. Family planning was a sensitive issue in the early 1960s, and tact was often needed to get expectant mothers to attend the clinics. They were held in virtual darkness with one light illuminating a blackboard — Paterson-Brown was well aware that a degree of anonymity was required.
One of her lifelong interests was the Girl Guides. She was appointed district commissioner for Hawick North in 1963 and advanced six years later to county commissioner for Roxburghshire, a post she held for eight years. She was subsequently Scottish Chief Commissioner, Chief Commissioner for the UK and Commonwealth and in 1989 she was awarded the Silver Fish, Guiding’s highest award.
Dinah Faulds, the Scottish Chief Commissioner of Girlguiding Scotland, said: “I found that wherever I travelled in Scotland on Guide business members would ask after June. She was gracious, keenly interested in taking the movement forward and equally at ease with the shyest Brownie or boldest leader.”
Family holidays were either spent golfing or skiing. She stopped skiing in 1992 after fracturing her femur, but was still playing a fiercely competitive game of golf until a few months ago. A year after fracturing her leg Paterson-Brown and her husband cycled from John o’ Groats to Land’s End and raised £12,500 for charity.
Paterson-Brown was made the Tweeddale Press Group’s “Man of the Year” in the 1980s. She was appointed CBE in 1991 and CVO in 2007. She is survived by her husband, their three sons and a daughter.
Dr June Paterson-Brown, CVO, CBE, Lord Lieutenant for Roxburgh, Ettrick and Lauderdale, 1998-2007, and Chief Commissioner, Girl Guides Association, was born on February 8, 1932. She died on December 6, 2009, aged 77

Letters:

Guardian:

Keith Roberts of the Ramblers suggests that walking is only worthwhile on “footpaths” and “open access land” (Letters, 26 January). The Ramblers ignore, yet again, the urban walker. Urban routes are being developed in east London linked to the Olympic games. Will Self, Iain Sinclair and others have written about the “psychogeography” of our towns and ­cities, and initiatives such as sustainable transport encourage ­journeys on foot and by bicycle.
Gordon Joly
London
• It is interesting that on the day when your G2 interview with Natasha Walter (25 January) discusses the return of sexism, the Quick Crossword has the clue: “The wife?”, to which the solution appears to be “old woman”.
Gerda Fewster
Crickhowell, Powys
• When will the people of the US stop taking the name of a whole continent? I am from Ecuador, I am American, but my president is not Obama (wish it were, though), and my country is not fighting in Iraq. Why don’t they call themselves Usamericans, or Ustatians?
Cecilia Estrada
Guayaquil, Ecuador
• How are we supposed to take Geoffrey Wheatcroft’s article about the blandness of nicknames for the England cricket team (Off the Boil, in with Belly, 18 January), when his own email address uses “wheaty” as its monicker?
Richard Earney
Enfield, Middlesex
• I particularly liked the “second-generation” nickname (Letters, 27 ­January) given to Carlos Eduardo Ventura, a ­Brazilian who played in Portugal and who was nicknamed Duda. That name, in turn, acquired a prefix – Zippidy.
Andy Bebington
Croydon, Surrey
• Re this iconic cliche thing (Letters, 25 January). You’ve really gone off on one.
Lynn Fotheringham
Carnforth, Lancashire
• Surely the reason why the letters regarding cliches are printed at the ­bottom of the page is to keep them below the radar.
Gareth Pilch Pritchard

Chris Padley (Letters, 26 January) seems to be comforted by Deborah Orr’s claim (What private schools can teach the state sector, 21 January) that the elite “are, whisper it, often exceptionally bright in the first place as well”. I’m afraid comfort is all he can have since there is no scientific evidence whatsoever that the elite have managed to pay their way into the upper echelons of the IQ scale. Children in this sector of society have the same chance of inheriting genes from already well-endowed parents as do children in any other sector. There are unintelligent children everywhere, but the difference is that the elite have always had access to a wide variety of means to hide them – the diplomatic service, the priesthood, Daddy’s business – to name but a few.
Hugh Coolican
Department of psychology, Coventry University
• Chris Padley applauds Deborah Orr’s article as the most sensible thing he has read on education. Padley agrees with Orr that wealth and environment are significant advantages but that sneaking up in the rear is the genetic factor.
I am puzzled, however, that if the elite were so convinced of their genetic inheritance, why do they expend so much effort, and up to £30,000 per year in school fees, on their children? Or if they bravely remain within the state system, why do they spend hundreds of thousands on house purchases in the catchment areas for particularly “good” comprehensives? If they really believed that genes will always win through, why don’t they send their children to “bog standard” state schools. Whisper it softly, I think we know why.
Bill Major
Liverpool
• Deborah Orr fails to produce evidence for her assertion that children who are particularly academically able do best when taught among children of similar abilities. Of course, if it were true, it might also be true that children who are not particularly academically able do worse when they are taught among other children of similar abilities.
The benefits of a collective and social approach to children’s education, as opposed to the highly individualised models prevalent in our society, were well set out by the US academic Urie Bronfenbrenner in his comparison of the US and Soviet education systems, Two Worlds of Childhood. One of the methods was to pair a child who is progressing well in a subject with a child who is less advanced – as a result both do better. The teacher and the taught.
The fact is that by the time a child is selected as “academically able” the filters of privilege, poverty and disadvantage have already worked their alchemy. So it seems unlikely that the problems of unfulfilled potential will be resolved simply by the desegregation of children by class. Something more fundamental is required. Socialism.
Nick Wright
Faversham, Kent

As governments, aid agencies and Haitians discuss how best to rebuild shattered Port-au-Prince (Report, 26 January) it is vital they make keeping women and girls safe a high priority. As we saw after the 2004 Asian tsunami, women are always in danger of sexual abuse following a huge natural disaster. Our workers on the ground are already hearing reports that this is occurring. So far they are only isolated incidents, but we are afraid they will become more frequent.
At least 10,000 pregnant women affected by the disaster will give birth in the next month. Around 1,500 will face life-threatening complications during their deliveries, which will be more dangerous than usual because of the lack of health facilities and clean water.
We have seen Haitians do what they can to protect vulnerable women, such as the teams of men volunteering to guard against rapists at night, but they can only do so much. Everyone involved in the Haiti emergency must put the safety of women at the core of their work.
Belinda Calaguas
Director of policy and campaigns, ActionAid
• Kofi Annan’s plea for long-term support for fragile states (We can turn Haiti around, 22 January) is spot on, but there is one missing element in his analysis: the over-emphasis on elections as the means of securing stability and progress.
Democratic and legitimate elections are important, but it is the immediate follow-up to them which is crucial. I have been on 51 missions to 36 emerging democracies and, even when follow-up has been included in my terms of ­reference, it has never fully happened. In Zambia in 2001, for example, the agencies involved in the electoral process agreed before polling day with proposals for follow-up, but, as ever, there was a collective sigh of relief once the election was over and everyone returned to their day jobs. The immediate aftermath of an election is the optimum moment for “structured support”. The UN, the EU, and other key agencies simply need to make it happen.
Michael Meadowcroft
Leeds
• If there is a “vanity parade” of aid agencies in Haiti, as Guido Bertolaso claims, it won’t be for the first time (Haiti can lead quake relief effort, PM tells summit, 26 January). Immediately after the war in Kosovo, 320 international NGOs rushed in. A year later, on a mission to discover the conditions for returning refugees, we found that only a tiny proportion of housing had been rebuilt. The problem is that NGOs need to impress donors at home, and that this militates against both modesty and co-operation; let alone acknowledging that local people may have something to contribute. Perhaps submitting to co-ordination should be a pre-condition for any NGO to operate in disaster areas.
Ruth Valentine
London

In his latest rant against genetics, Oliver James either does not understand, or ­wilfully misunderstands, the genetic basis of neurobiology, and purposefully overlooks huge swathes of scientific literature (Nature v nurture – what are the latest genetic ­findings, 23 January).
Despite the enormous complexity of the human genome, geneticists are continuing to reveal many DNA changes that explain disorders such as learning disability and autism. These changes are often private to each ­individual. This tells us that ­different parts of the human genome can be ­disrupted independently in people with a single ­disease: there are likely to be many dozens, possibly ­hundreds, of “autism genes”, for example.
It is, indeed, “extremely unlikely that there are single genes for major mental illnesses such as schizophrenia” but this does not indicate that genetics play no part. Like the brain itself, the genetic contribution to behaviour is complex.
This is not a “fallback position”, but a straightforward and ­dispassionate appraisal of the facts. Far from ­having “to admit defeat”, geneticists have begun to disperse the fog that has ­enveloped genetic disease. Their new insights should ensure that unwarranted pronouncements of fault are not levelled at ­parents who ­produce anyone other than a ”normal” child.
Chris Ponting
Medical research council and professor of genomics, University of Oxford
Kevin Talbot

George Monbiot’s proposal that we should all contribute to his fund to arrest Tony Blair for the “illegal” invasion of Iraq is worrying (Wanted: Tony Blair for war crimes. Arrest him and claim your reward, 25 January). It ­suggests that the policies and decisions taken by the cabinet of this country should be dictated by the interpretation of international law by a lawyer.
Over 200 years ago, this country took the unilateral decision to take on and destroy the international slave trade. Not only was this undoubtedly illegal as far as many of our enemies and allies were concerned, it was expensive as well. No doubt there was much disagreement and opposition in Britain to this decision. Thousands of slaves also died in the process, through friendly fire and through being thrown overboard when slavers spotted British warships approaching. History says that Britain did the right thing, although many of those slaves killed in the ­process might have preferred life as a slave to death by drowning.
This is not to say that history will view the Iraq invasion in the same light. But to suggest that we should go around making citizen’s arrests of a former prime minister of our country on the grounds of a lawyer’s opinion which happens to support our own view strikes me as appalling for our democracy. We elect people, trust them to do their job, and vote them out if we don’t like what they’ve done. We don’t arrest them.
Andrew Phillips
Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire
• George Monbiot’s campaign to have Tony Blair arrested as a war criminal is intellectually and morally immature. It is clear that Blair believed, following 9/11, that al-Qaida was going to acquire weapons of mass destruction and had the ideology, organisation and will to use them. It is also clear that Saddam Hussein’s regime was a strategic ally in a hatred of Israel which was producing a lethal scenario in the Middle East which could have led to a much greater disaster. Blair saw this and was driven to act. 
To single him out from what was a lethal cocktail of international events and corrupt institutions and recommend his harassment is childish. Blair examined his conscience, undertook a democratic argument which he could easily have lost in the Commons on the eve of the war – he was in fact supported– and went to war with a heavy heart.
Peter Higginson
Wolverhampton
• Jack Straw’s letter to the attorney general of 20 February 2003, published by the Chilcot inquiry, shows that, when it comes to a legal view of the Iraq war, we are looking in the wrong place. He complains that the advice he is receiving from his own legal advisers is different from that offered by the legal experts in the United States, Australia and the Netherlands. Why are different countries relying on different legal opinions to establish the legality of the war?
International law is the same for all those countries, so are the UN security council resolutions, so were the facts of whether or not Iraq was in material breach of those resolutions. If the war was legal for Britain, it was legal for the others. For a definitive view of the legality of the war, therefore, we should look not to the attorney general but to an international adjudication. Straw argues in a note to Michael Wood, the Foreign Office’s chief legal adviser, on 29 January 2003 that: “There is no international court for resolving such questions in the manner of a domestic court.” A conclusion from this whole fiasco is that such an international court should be created.
Richard Laming
London
• William Shawcross (Thanks to the ‘illegal’ war, Iraqis at last have real hope for the future, 27 January) weighs the sufferings of Iraqis and declares that the invasion was right and Britain right to join it. As a result of the war his “tens of thousands” of Iraqi dead number at least 100,000 and plausible estimates by reputable organisations put the number at over half a million. So the invasion and the war were fine, we must regret only the “woefully inadequate post-invasion planning”. Has there ever been a war that went according to a plan? 
GH Holtham
London

Independent:

As a practising cancer specialist, I fully support Judy Benson in her opinion that the idea of patients battling cancer is flawed, and that “it makes dying into a personal failure” (letters, 23 January).
It is too simplistic, and, worse, unfair to those patients, usually ones with more advanced and inherently more aggressive disease, who can be undermined by the perception that survivors have somehow fought harder than those less fortunate.
“Cancer” covers different conditions with a range of natural histories and patterns of behaviour. As an example, some prostate cancer patients can live 10 years or more without even needing simple hormone therapy, whereas the outlook for those with pancreatic or lung cancer, in general, remains poor, despite advances in surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
Any perception that it is somehow a cancer patient’s fault if they “lose the battle” (implying that they did not try hard enough, and that more effort on their part would have been successful), is to be abhorred. Unfortunately, such nonsense is widely pervasive, even among clinicians, and risks stigmatising patients in the eyes of close family and friends that they are somehow responsible if their cancer spreads, or doesn’t respond to treatment, or indeed proves to be fatal.
Similarly, in some circumstances, declining particular treatments, based on an informed choice of risks and benefits, doesn’t mean they have “given up”.
Dr Bruce Sizer
Consultant in Clinical Oncology, Essex County Hospital
Role of burka in Western society
The furore over the burka (report, 27 January) is the latest in a long line of stories suggesting that European governments don’t quite know how to interact with Islam. I can offer a simple solution: treat religions as we treat any other belief.
Let’s change the word “Islam” to “Marxism” to illustrate my point. We should be free to criticise Marxism, mock Marxists, and publish funny pictures of Karl Marx. But we should not discriminate against Marxists, or vilify them all just because a few have blown up planes.
We certainly should not hit them with exceptional legislation; this just gives the impression of the state being hostile to the whole belief. This method works for everything from faith schools to sharia law.
Take the veil, for example. Marxist women should be allowed to wear it in public, as long as it complies with British law. So they can wear it on the high street, but anywhere I have to remove my balaclava or motorcycle helmet – banks, stores, airports – so, too, should Marxists remove the veil.
Sam Wilkin
Stanmore, Middlesex
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, as chair of Muslims for Secular Democracy, supports “restrictions” on women wearing the burka “in key public spaces” (Opinion, 25 January). With the veil-wearer, it seems “communication is unequal because one party hides all expression”.
As an ordinary Anglo- Saxon/Celtic atheist, might I suggest that she first persuade the commanders of the various Christian and Jewish armies at present occupying “key public areas” of the Middle East to get their men and women to remove the wrap-around, mirrored sunglasses many of them favour. After all, isn’t it the eyes, rather than the nose or mouth, that are the windows of the soul?
Mark Kesteven
York
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown takes an unexplained swipe at the Muslim Council of Britain as she pursues a bizarre attack on those women who choose to wear the veil. She claims that the Muslim Council of Britain is “retrogressive”, but gives no reason for this.
The Muslim Council of Britain is a democratic, cross-sectarian Muslim umbrella body that does not pass judgement on any Muslim tradition or tendency. We have consistently argued for equality of opportunity, not for special privilege.
Ms Alibhai-Brown rails against “liberal Westerners” who do not submit to her “progressive Muslim” aim of restricting the veil in public places. We presume her ire would also be reserved for President Obama who said last year: “It is important for Western countries to avoid impeding Muslim citizens from practising religion as they see fit, for instance, by dictating what clothes a Muslim woman should wear. We cannot disguise hostility towards any religion behind the pretence of liberalism.”
Tufael Ahmed
Secretary, Media Committee, Muslim Council of Britain, London E1
Misleading labels on processed food
It is indeed scandalous that processed convenience foods or ready meals can mislead the consumer to such an extent that a chicken sandwich made with chicken from Thailand can be labelled as “produced in the UK” (“Convenience food labelling ‘misleading’”, 15 January). Studies show that three-quarters of consumers want to be able to see where their food comes from, and there can be nobody who actually wants to be misled by food labelling.
We are working on new legislation in the European Parliament, where I am responsible for the issue on behalf of the centre-left group of MEPs from the 27 member states, and I hope our work will result in the provision of clear and accurate information on all the food we buy.
I have submitted amendments, backed by Which? and the NFU, to ensure that no longer can we be misled about the origin of the food we are eating in processed products. If successful, these amendments will ensure that labelling of the country of origin of a product becomes mandatory. They will also guarantee that, for meat products, information must be provided stating where the animal was reared
Glenis Willmott MEP (Lab, East Midlands)
Leader of the European Parliamentary Labour Party, Brussels
Sometimes doctors do know best
I note the dismissive style in which Jeremy Laurance comments on “clinical freedom” ( 20 January). He may regard “pushing routine cases to the back of the queue” as a bad thing, successfully stamped out by targets, but I would venture to suggest that there are times when individual clinical judgement is far more important than meeting a target. The four-hour target in A&E may have reduced waiting times, but it also means that in the world of figures and targets, a stubbed toe that came in three hours and 59 minutes ago has a higher priority than a person with multiple wounds requiring immediate lifesaving treatment.
I would suggest that the best people to make the judgement about clinical priority probably are doctors. Routine cases don’t only get put off because they are “less interesting”; sometimes (in fact, more frequently) they get put off because the doctors genuinely want those people with life-threatening illness to be seen and treated first.
Dr Bryony Rudd
Bideford, Devon
Homeopathy: show us some evidence
Stanley Knill misunderstands both the scientific method and the history of science (letters, 25 January). Scientists and sceptics do not reject homeopathy because they “don’t understand how that is possible”, but because there is no evidence that it works any better than a placebo, has no pharmacologically active ingredients, and because it violates known principles of physics and chemistry.
Science is open to new ideas, as long as they have evidence to back them up (and if you’re trying to overturn the status quo, you need some very strong evidence). That is precisely why Pasteur’s theories are now accepted: they were shown to be correct with evidence. When homeopaths have some evidence to back up their magical thinking, then we’ll talk.
Ben Bawden
Epsom, Surrey
Gambling on Duralex glasses
At my secondary school in the late 1970s we used the versatile French glass Duralex (“The glass tumbler that would not be broken”, 27 January). We played a modification of the game French schoolkids played, adding the serial numbers underneath at each lunchtime; the kid with the highest total by the end of the week won a Mars bar from the others.
Intriguingly, not all the glasses came from France; a few had “Spain” stamped near the serial number. If you got one of these, you won an extra 10 points.
Michael O’Hare
Northwood, Middlesex
No such thing as a wasted vote
I agree wholeheartedly with Mike Maas (letters, 22 January). There is no such thing as a wasted vote. Voting is not about choosing a winner; it is an opportunity to register an opinion and influence an outcome. One may be faced with choosing the least unappealing candidate. If this is unpalatable, cross them all off the ballot paper and state “None of these”, rather than do nothing.
In the last general election, 39 per cent spoilt ballot papers would have sent out a stronger message of discontent than a 61 per cent turnout did, the second-lowest turnout since 1945. Doing nothing is the greatest waste of all.
Tony Taylor
Nantwich, Cheshire
As a 16-year-old about to finish secondary education, I strongly feel that our generation is not getting enough education on politics.
Imagine a child being suddenly given an exam on a subject they have never learnt about and have no prior knowledge of. They will surely fail the test and the whole thing will be pointless. We are given no teaching of how politics works (apart from the occasional bits and pieces that crop up in other subjects such as English and religious education), and yet when we leave school and enter into the world we are expected to vote.
I feel politics should be taught, from a strictly enforced neutral standpoint, in all secondary schools.
Chloe Carpenter
Monkton Heathfield, Somerset
In arguing for the right to abstain from voting, Nick Chadwick (letters, 27 January) says such an expression of disaffection might encourage a little humility in those re-elected.
We have seen lower and lower turnouts over the past few elections, but neither Gordon Brown nor Tony Blair seem to affect much humility. It’s difficult to think of any politician of significance who has.
David Humphrey
London W5
Briefly…
The bell tolls
You report on the plummeting population of the winchat (23 January). A young, well-fed cat of my acquaintance has, in the past week, when birds are desperate for food and taking risks, killed three fledglings, taking his tally from spring that I know of to 11. Has the time come for cats to be muzzled?
Rob Evans
Brynsiencyn, Ynys Mon
God’s truth
The Occupier of St James’ Church, Old Ellerby, East Yorkshire, has received notice from the TVLA people that they have no record of a TV licence for the property. The Occupier, being rather above such things as licences, is in no position to reply, but a member of the congregation did. Having pointed out the nature of the building and given an assurance that there is no TV, she has now been officially warned that an inspector may call. I belive I can feel a sermon coming on.
Revd Canon Chris Simmons
The New Rectory, Brandesburton, Humberside
No bet
I like the idea of a non-casino bank available to all as a choice of bank (letters, 25 January). But if in good times bank costs are funded by banks’ casino profits, then without them the non-casino bank would have to charge its ordinary customers more, particularly those who keep in credit and therefore don’t now pay charges. So if the non-casino bank did cost more, would people then choose it as the honourable thing to do?
H Trevor Jones
Guildford
Clink for drinkers
As usual, the majority must suffer to curb the activities of the few (The Big Question, “Will banning cheap offers lead to people drinking less?”, 20 January), in this case, the relatively few binge drinkers. It is the visible effect of the abuse on the streets that is the problem. The police, rather than spending their time on awareness courses, should be instructed to take back control of the streets. A night in the cells would clear a few heads.
William W Scott
North Berwick, East Lothian
Fat chance
Will discounts be available for underweight passengers? (“Overweight? Then you’ll have to buy two seats”, 21 January.)
John Gibbs
Mexico City

Times:

Sir, The invasion of Iraq was not unlawful. Nor was it lawful (report, Jan 27). It is wrong to suppose that the so-called legality of such a thing can be finally determined as if it were a civil or criminal wrong in national law. International war, like civil war, is a massive breakdown of social order, unleashing unpredictable and immeasurable damage of all kinds.
It is wrong to suppose that the legality of a particular war can be finally determined by a few words in those masterworks of cynicism, dishonesty and opportunism known as Security Council resolutions. Its resolutions, like treaties, are disagreements reduced to writing. It is unreasonable to suppose that the legality of particular wars can be determined by the fact that an official representing a particular government in the Security Council does or does not raise his or her hand in favour of the adoption of a particular resolution, whatever may be the reasons of self-interest or public interest of that government.
The role of the Security Council under the UN Charter is to authorise and organise action for the maintenance of international peace of security. It is not a generalised system for authorising wars. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office legal advisers, with enormous individual and collective experience in these matters, determined that the Security Council resolutions did not authorise invasion in this case.
Discussion of the legality of the invasion distorted and almost monopolised public debate at the time and has continued to do so. Wars should be preceded and accompanied by intense public debate about all possible aspects — strategic, moral, political, social, economic, legal. Unleashing the monstrous phenomenon of war engages the moral responsibility of those who, by action or inaction, cause wars. It engages also the moral responsibility of all the rest of us who allow such things to happen.
Professor Philip Allott
Professor Emeritus of International Public Law, Trinity College, University of Cambridge

John Sc wrote:
If I cannot beat up my neighbour when I know he is a crook, why should it ever be legal for one country to invade another – even one with a leader as bad as Saddam Hussein?
January 27, 2010 8:59 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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bernard grose wrote:
has attitudes changed now that 2 government lawyers, one of whom resigned, have now stated that in their view the invasion was unlawful. Whilst there may well have been a dictorial regime how many innocent civilians have been killed in the effort to make it right.
January 27, 2010 7:38 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Peter Cressall wrote:
Peace, Robert? Are we talking about the same country?
January 27, 2010 7:05 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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robert seaford wrote:
Peter, by that do you mean who won the peace?
January 27, 2010 6:47 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Peter Cressall wrote:
If I remember right, the Nuremburg indictments included “waging agressive war.” The victors are never prosecuted, though. By the way, who were the victors in Iraq?

Sir, Perhaps a fitting response to the death of Yasser are the tears of sympathy and gratitude in an English vicarage kitchen many thousands of miles away, while reading the words of his colleagues and friends on a morning that Yasser has not lived to see (“Another day, another bomb. But this one was different . . . it killed one of our own”, Jan 27).
Thank you for the reminder that every death diminishes us.
The Rev Fiona Newton
Rural Dean of Hoxne and acting Rural Dean of Hartismere, Suffolk
Sir, I would like to think that Tony Blair reads James Hider’s wonderful tribute to Yasser before he gives evidence to the Chilcot inquiry and realises the true impact of his actions in taking us to war, then multiplies it by the many lives that have been lost.
Christopher D. Forrest
Plymouth

Peter Cressall wrote:
The bell tolls not just for thee, Fiona, but for all of us.

Sir, My committee was disturbed to hear of the pressure being put on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office by the Treasury to sell embassies and high commissions in high-profile locations. Selling these buildings not only represents a downgrading of the UK’s presence overseas but would also sacrifice an important weapon in our export arsenal. The ability to offer companies the opportunity to host meetings and events in impressive locations can make a real difference to their ability to win new business.
The current financial situation means we have to reduce public expenditure. But to do so by selling strategic parts of the FCO estate is a short-sighted decision and in the long run will cost UK plc much more than is saved. If we are going to succeed in fostering an export-led recovery, we need to see a culture shift across Whitehall. The country can’t afford a Whitehall machine that appears uninterested in promoting UK plc in the global economy. In that ugly but popular phrase, does the rest of government get it? We’re not sure they do — and they need to. They can’t just delegate their responsibility to UK Trade & Investment.
Peter Luff, MP
Chairman of the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee

Trudi Morris wrote:
But that is what they have done across the board: sell off quality property (and land) and rebuild smaller, cheaper tinpot structures that they acknowledge will need replacing (in as little as 17 years in the case of prisons). But will do for now.

Being an old fashioned girl, it’s what used to be called asset stripping.
January 28, 2010 12:27 AM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Peter Cressall wrote:
At this point in time it doesn’t really matter, Robert. More important is: have the politicians who will replace him learnt? I regret, no prizes for the correct answer.
January 27, 2010 7:37 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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robert seaford wrote:
Brown also sold the family gold reserves at the worst possible moment – will he ever learn?
January 27, 2010 6:51 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Peter Cressall wrote:
Are we in such dire straits that we must sell the family silver?

Sir, In a leading article commenting on the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war (“A search for truth”, Nov 25) you described my views on the inquiry as “extraordinary and disgraceful”, but you did not quote those views or inform readers where they could be found. Your reference was to an opinion piece I wrote in the Independent on Sunday (Nov 22), and I believe you have misrepresented my views.
I do not “already know [my] view of Chilcot’s work”. I do not believe the inquiry to be “a defensive response to public anger”. I am not a “zealot” and do not “hold all such inquiries to be tainted until and unless they arrive at the right answer”. Indeed, my article was generally supportive of the inquiry.
I am concerned that my observation that two of the five members of the panel are Jewish was interpreted as a statement that the panel “has too many Jews on it”, suggesting prejudice against Jews. I do not believe that I have written anything to support such a charge.
Oliver Miles
Former British Ambassador to Libya

stanley cohen wrote:
Be quiet, Peter!
January 27, 2010 7:09 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Peter Cressall wrote:
“Generally supportive of” Oliver Miles? Come, come! An ambassador can do better than that. “Generally supported” would be the correct English.

Sir, You report that First Capital Connect will be required to pay compensation totalling up to £1 million to passengers affected by FCC’s inability to run an adequate service on the route between Bedford and Brighton (Jan 27). It is also stated that First Group, which owns FCC, received subsidies in excess of £140 million from the Government last year. Given those figures, the compensation offer is derisory.
I, and many others, pay in excess of £3,500 per annum for the dubious privilege of travelling on FCC’s trains. Never has the phrase “commuter misery” been more appropriate in describing the “service” during the past three months.
The Department for Transport has been supine throughout this period and has woken up only belatedly to its responsibilities in this matter. It should demand a much improved compensation package for travellers.
What other industry claims to offer a weekend service but then relies on the “goodwill” of staff to provide it?
Graham Warner
Harpenden, Herts

Peter Cressall wrote:
My dear Arthur! The taxes paid on fuel my motorists would be sufficient to make the road network the envy of the world. May I remind you that, on the other hand, rather than pay taxes, rail usage is heavily subsidised?
January 27, 2010 10:33 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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John W wrote:
Whether FCC receive a subsidy or not is totally irrelevant.

Irrespective of where the income comes from, FCC do not provide a good service and that’s a fact (as Mr Benitez once said).

January 27, 2010 10:25 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Arthur Nowr wrote:
Wasn’t the construction of the roads also subsidised by the taxpayer Peter? Indeed, left to the private sector, we would probably never have large nationwide infrastructure projects. The capital expenditure would be too large and the rates of return too low for private investors.
January 27, 2010 10:03 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Peter Cressall wrote:
The reason the roads are over-crowded, Mr Duffay, is that successive governments have refused to build an adequate system, preferring to waste money on the bottomless pit called the railways, and see the country’s road network descend into a state more appropriate to a third-world basket case.
January 27, 2010 7:43 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Bill Duffay wrote:
Aren’t commuters also taxpayers, Mr Cressall, and of course aren’t they also providing a vital service to the nation by not driving on our over-crowded roads. For that, the other taxpayers should be grateful.
January 27, 2010 7:29 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Peter Cressall wrote:
The day that passengers pay the total cost of the services, they will have a right to complain. Until then, I would suggest that they offer a prayer of thanksgining to the poor taxpayers who are subsidising them.
January 27, 20

Sir, Sathnam Sanghera’s article on e-books and e-readers (times2, Jan 26) appears to suggest that technological progress and better consumer prices for books, will, as it has in the music industry, lead to having little to choose from. That only a few authors make a decent living out of books is mainly because of the cost of publishing, distribution and buildings that eat into book revenue. Publishers, who have to manage the risk of a book failing to sell in quantity, rarely recover the advance paid up front for a book and often end up pulping 25 per cent of a book’s run because of returns.
Digital music, while not perfect as a business model, has brought to the fore bands such as Arctic Monkeys and gives artists visibility via a global stage, sometimes from their home basement — Sandi Thom, for instance. As print and distribution costs are reduced in the publishing industry because of digital delivery of books, there will be more choice, and yes, some of those books will be free and probably of poor quality. But more money will flow to authors and some of that will flow to new authors, providing they are delivering good stories and interesting content.
Joe Barrett
Farnham, Surrey

Bill Duffay wrote:
But surely the only advantage that the free online world provides pop/rock musicians is exposure. Once they’re exposed they get snapped up by record labels who are able to provide the distribution and advertising. The same, surely, could happen with books. A few ebooks authors might become reasonably well-known, but to really hit the big time they’ll need a publisher to provide the printed format and for advertising and distribution.

Sir, We argue that Britain’s only national hub airport must be directly connected to high-speed rail, as is effectively demonstrated at Amsterdam Schiphol and Paris Charles de Gaulle airports (letters, Jan 25 and 26). Connecting by a spur or branch line would not allow for the seamless interchange that a modern integrated transport network requires.
Also, we have a huge opportunity at Heathrow to generate significant modal shift. The airport is one of the most difficult in Europe to reach by public transport. Because of its location a new Heathrow hub railway station just north of the airport could accommodate Great Western services connecting Wales and western England, Crossrail services, Chiltern Line services, Airtrack services from Waterloo and the South West, as well as High Speed 2, so an interchange at Heathrow would be for rail as well as aviation.
This would also reduce congestion at Central London railway stations. For example, a rail passenger from southwest London wishing to reach Birmingham could, with Airtrack services running into the new Heathrow hub, change at the hub for high-speed travel on to that city. This would negate the need for travel across London to get to Euston to travel north.
With this strategy we can breathe life into an airport that endures poor public transport access and consequently fails to compete effectively with its European rivals.
Tony Lodge
Author, The Right Track, Bow Group

Arthur Nowr wrote:
Reduce congestion at Central London railway stations? Surely the vast majority of people blocking up Central London railway stations are Home Counties and suburban commuters going to or from work?
January 27, 2010 9:57 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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stanley cohen wrote:
Peter, be quiet!
January 27, 2010 7:23 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Peter Cressall wrote:
Modal shift? Is that a fashionable petticoat?
January 27, 2010 6:21 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Peter Hurst wrote:
The letter-writer ignores the blindingly obvious fact that most people using Heathrow are leaving from London or going into London.

For them the travel links are more than adequate, they are very good.

Telegraph:

SIR – In February 2003, my husband was the deputy high commissioner in Abuja, Nigeria, when he was given 24 hours notice to go to war in Iraq with the British Army. He had, however, been primed for a war posting towards the end of 2002 by someone from human resources at the Foreign Office. His role was as a political and civilian adviser to a British general; he was the only diplomat to be posted with the Armed Forces.
We had well-informed doubts about the truth of the weapons of mass destruction story, and Labour’s and the American neo-Cons’ itch for a fight. Closer to home, we suspected that the Foreign Office chiefs and political advisers in No 10 would be either too feeble or self-serving to make the right decisions for Britons and our national interest.
 

Ironically, I was due to attend the monthly meeting of the wives of the heads of mission in Abuja, which was coincidentally hosted by the Iraqi ambassador’s wife on the morning the first missiles blasted into Baghdad. I did not attend that particular non-politically aligned, charitable get-together.
When Tony Blair came to Basra, after the Army had taken the city, the prime minister had nothing to say to the new local leaders who had been cultivated by my husband.
Like most British people, my husband and I feel impotent in the face of the Government’s mismanagement and deception, but perhaps even more so, given that, in common with the many others who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, we put ourselves at risk for a lie. My husband’s contribution was acknowledged by the military and he was awarded an OBE. But we all know that those who advised, acquiesced or who took the decisions and deceived us all will not get their just rewards.
Tomorrow, when Mr Blair attends the Iraq inquiry he will be smuggled in, guarded by the police for his physical protection. If I and others were to protest we would, no doubt, be bundled into a police van. Mr Blair, whose decisions cost thousands of lives and billions of pounds, will sit and smirk in safety.
Tamsin Leakey
Glen Isla, Angus
SIR – Is the Chilcot Inquiry asking the right questions about the timing of
Mr Blair’s commitment that Britain would join America in military action against Iraq?
The Clinton administration was committed to regime change in Iraq. Did George Bush inherit a commitment, given by Tony Blair to Bill Clinton, for Britain to join in any future military action to remove Saddam Hussein?
Charles Efford
London E14
SIR – What is the point of employing legal advisers if the Government “knows best”?
Trevor Stone
Worthing, West Sussex
Earth’s finite resources
SIR – Your leading article (January 26) argues that there is a conservative case for preserving the planet’s scarce resources, whether or not the case for man-made global warming can be proved.
The Daily Telegraph could do no greater service than to pursue that line with all its power. The issues of sustainability and climate change have become confused, to the extent that any view contrary to the “consensus” on man-made global warming is taken to be anti-sustainability.
There can be no serious argument about the urgent need for governments to address the increasing demand for the Earth’s finite resources, and our pollution of the planet. However, there is now sufficient evidence to show that global warming is due not to man’s minute contribution to atmospheric carbon dioxide, but to solar radiation and the oceans. Twice in the past 2,000 years – the Roman and medieval warm periods – the Earth’s temperatures have been like those at present, without man-made CO2, and mankind has evidently survived.
The huge amounts of time, money, resources, effort and creativity committed to present and future effort on the “global warming” project should surely be applied instead to saving the planet, which we can do, rather than on trying to wrest control of the Earth’s climate from the Sun.
John McIntyre
Farnham, Surrey
Shelling an egg
SIR – Brian Connelly (Letters, January 26) should remove the egg from the boiling water with a tablespoon and immediately run it under the cold tap for two seconds.
This releases the adhesion of the shell to the white, and peeling the top takes no time at all.
Derek Cheeseman
Broadstone, Dorset
SIR – The correct way to remove the top of an egg is by using egg scissors.
I purchased mine in an antique shop some time ago, and they have been used to good effect since.
P.J. Clark
Market Harborough, Leicestershire
SIR – Chris Harding (Letters, January 27) asks what the Liberals in Lilliput did when there was no facility to eat an egg from the side.
Presumably, they scrambled for power or poached the other parties’ ideas.
Ron Mason
East Grinstead, West Sussex
When to have children
SIR – As a young bride in the 1950s, I was told by my mother to: “make sure you have all your babies before you’re 30 – old eggs are no good” (report, January 27). All my friends knew this, and we had our babies in our twenties.
Maybe researchers at the Universities of St Andrews and Edinburgh could have asked some grandmothers, and saved time and effort.
Patricia Perry
Whitby, North Yorkshire
London airport in Calais
SIR – Could we now campaign to have the next London airport outside Calais, which has rebranded itself as “part of Britain” (report, January 26)?
It has flat land, few people to be disturbed, and would provide quick and easy access from central London. It would also help European integration.
David Teale
London W4
Doctors are tested
SIR – I can assure Andy Burnham, the Secretary of State for Health, (Commentary, January 26) that there are indeed a huge number of people who will be very surprised to hear that their “doctors currently have no formal assessment of their competence” once they start in practice.
Those people are the junior and middle grade doctors who will be assessed, formally, at a minimum, 26 times a year. These include assessments of our ability to perform a single task, interpret an investigation and formulate a patient’s complete management plan. In addition, we are now assessed by our peer group and other professionals.
Dr Simon Davey
Bristol
SIR – Pathologists engaged in diagnostic work for the NHS undertake external quality assurance programmes, which are a direct test of their clinical competence, every six months.
Furthermore, the vast majority of clinicians in all disciplines work hard to maintain and develop their competencies and skills, and take pride in this. It’s called being a professional.
Peter A. Hall
Musgrave Professor of Pathology
Queen’s University, Belfast
End of recession
SIR – If a recession is defined by two successive quarters of negative growth, should not coming out of a recession be defined by two successive periods of growth (report, January 27)?
George Illingworth
Kenilworth, Warwickshire
Loss of discrimination
SIR – The refusal of a Jobcentre to advertise a job for a “reliable” worker (report, January 27) shows how prescient the American wit Tom Lehrer was.
Upon completing his national service in the US army in the late 1950s, he observed: “The army has taken the American democratic ideal to its logical conclusion. Not only does it forbid discrimination on the grounds of race, creed and colour, but also on the grounds of ability.”
That pretty much sums up the attitude of the Labour Government of the past
13 years, and the culture it has engendered in this country.
Adrian Beasley-Suffolk
Pershore, Worcestershire
The art of knowing which vegetables to use when
SIR – Better storage will prolong the freshness of vegetables (Letters, January 27). I purchased a large cabbage on December 11 from a supermarket, kept it in my unheated utility room, and was able to use the final leaves on January 17. It was still as crisp and flavoursome as when I bought it.
The red onions I am using were bought in late November. Carrots, celery and Chinese leaves keep for weeks in the chiller drawer of my fridge. Potatoes are transferred from their plastic bags into recycled paper bags and stored in the dark beneath the stairs.
However, sprouts, parsnips and cucumber do not keep well. I tend to use these in stews when they begin to go soft.
Anthony G. Bishop
Swindon, Wiltshire
SIR – The cherries that Joanna Harrison purchased (Letters, January 27) are in season in South America. That’s why they tasted so good.
The reason supermarket vegetables do not last is that most of them are kept in deep chill. They are older than they look and when they are returned to room temperature, they rot quickly.
John Howson
Mileham, Norfolk
SIR – When my local Tesco was selling cherries at £3 for a small punnet, I went round to the end of the store where a roadside tree was laden with delicious cherries and picked my own.
Richard Shaw
Dunstable, Bedfordshire

Irish Times
Dissolving the NUI
Madam, – Unlike Ferdinand von Prondzynski (Education Today, January 26th), I cannot feel that abolishing “part of the essence of Ireland” is “the right thing” to do. An institution that runs like a thread through the past century of Irish history should not be abolished lightly. Certainly the National University of Ireland is a somewhat illogical, antiquated and perhaps even inefficient institution. So too is the University of Oxford (astoundingly illogical, antiquated and inefficient on occasion), and yet this has not held it back as a centre of higher learning.
I do agree with the professor, however, that Minister for Education Batt O’Keeffe has gone about making this decision in a poor fashion. So sudden has the announcement been that many questions remain unanswered. What, for instance, will happen to the many scholarship funds which the NUI currently manages? These include travelling scholarships that allow Irish students research at the best universities around the world. I hope the Government does not intend, yet again, to save some money in the short term at the expense of the future education of its citizens. – Yours, etc,
CONOR O’BRIEN BA (NUI)
MSt (Oxon),
Haydon Road,
Didcot,
Oxfordshire,
England.
Madam, – The proposed abolition of the NUI means there can be no NUI panel for the Seanad, no NUI to compile the register of graduate electors, and thus no NUI senators. Legislative change to accommodate this state of affairs will be required. Now is the time to grasp the broader nettle of Seanad reform and I would welcome an announcement from the Minister for the Environment, John Gormley, of his timetable to present the required legislation before Cabinet and before the Oireachtas for approval.
Otherwise new graduates from soon to be former NUI-recognised institutions will not be able to vote, just as happened with St Patrick’s, Drumcondra and Mary Immaculate, Limerick when they moved from under the NUI’s umbrella.
Those who suggest this change will have a substantive negative impact on the prospects of graduates and somehow devalue their degrees are seeking to scaremonger at a time when job prospects are poor. The value of the NUI is and always has rested in the quality of its graduates and staff, not in the mere name of the NUI. The reality is that the vast majority of graduates refer to themselves as alumni of their own particular college whether UCD, UCC, UCG or Maynooth. That need not and should not change. – Yours, etc,
DANIEL K SULLIVAN,
Abbeyvale,
Corbally, Limerick.
Church’s role in primary schools
Madam, – On January 25th, your newspaper ran three items aimed at removing the influence of the Catholic Church from primary school education in Ireland. The banner headline on the Front page, “Catholic Church ‘should give up control of primary schools’,” was followed on page 7 by an article, “74% think church did not react properly to report”. This was capped by the first Editorial on page 15, “The damage to Catholic Church”. This is not disinterested social research, it is a campaign to push the Catholic Church out of education.
As a social scientist, I believe the survey question broke two cardinal rules for designing a fair and unambiguous questionnaire. The first deals with the use of emotive language. The semantic field surrounding the word “control” is extremely negative in our modern world. I believe that even if the respondents were asked, should the Angel Gabriel “control” our schools, the overwhelming response would be No. In the present context, where the Ryan and Murphy reports are being presented, mistakenly, as standing in judgment on the behaviour of every Catholic and particularly priests and religious, is it any wonder that the overwhelming majority would say No?
Secondly, the doubled-barrelled nature of the question makes it impossible to answer the question. Does the question refer to “control” inherent in the role of the patron, the board of management or the executive within the schools? Apart from religious education, none of the churches has any role in devising or supervising the school curriculum.
I believe that if your paper spent more time researching and reporting on what is actually taking place on the ground in Catholic and Church of Ireland primary schools across the country, the reader would get a very different and more positive picture of what is involved in managing a school.
In one of the schools in my home town there are eight people on the board of management. Two are appointed by the patron, two are elected from the parents of children who are presently attending the school, two come from the teaching staff and two are invited on to the board because of particular skills which they possess. All of the above give of their time and expertise without any remuneration. In fact, attending a board of management meeting cost them money. For many of these highly qualified people it is their way of returning something to the society which gave them opportunities in the past.
They have never been pressurised in any way by the patron or any of the clergy. The reason these people want to see a Christian ethos continue in their school is because they value their Christian faith. – Yours, etc,
Fr SEÁN McDONAGH,
St Columban’s,
Dalgan Park,
Navan, Co Meath.
Madam, – Your newspaper is endeavouring to use the justified groundswell of disappointment and revulsion at the mishandling of clerical child abuse on the part of the Catholic Church authorities to generate public pressure on the Catholic Church to abandon primary school management.
However, your campaign fails to take any account that, given the great numbers of children daily in their care, the primary schools of this State, including the 90 per cent (your figures) under Catholic Church management, currently are, and in recent times have been, one of the safest environments for children in the State.
In the town of Fermoy and its area there are six Catholic and one Church of Ireland primary schools. Through my work in these schools, I have been privileged over the past number of years to see the countless hours of voluntary effort put in by boards of management, parents’ committees and other helpers, not to mention the huge amount of unpaid extra-curricular work done by teachers and other staff of the schools in our town. A large proportion of these volunteers, both lay and professional, are committed parishioners. In a very real sense, at the parish level, these volunteers are the Catholic Church in its relationship with the (Catholic) schools.
The wording of the question that was put to voters in the Irish Times/Ipsos, MRBI poll on primary school management (Front page, January 25th), with its operative verb “controls”, may express the concerns of The Irish Times. However, I would suggest that the main concern of the vast majority of the thousands of volunteers sitting on boards of management and assisting them in their daily duty of care and education of children throughout the State is not “control” but rather “service” to local communities, parents and children.
With regard to your own newspaper’s position, I wish that you could be so straightforward as to own that your campaign with regard to the position of the Catholic Church in primary education is motivated, not so much by concerns for the safety of children, as by an ideology that abhors religious faith affiliated education per se. – Yours, etc,
Fr ANDREW CARVILL,
Monument Hill,
Fermoy, Co Cork.
Count me in
Madam, – Sandra Doody (January 27th) suggests that a “Count me in” website might be a good way to judge support for the Catholic church. Might I suggest the reintroduction of the tithe as a better way to find out who is in and who is out?
This system works very well in several countries including Germany and Finland where people declaring themselves as belonging to a Christian church pay a percentage of their income tax to a fund that is divided between all the Christian churches. Anyone who has been christened but doesn’t want to pay this tax merely has to declare themselves as having left the church at their local court.
This system would have the added benefit of allowing the Christian churches in Ireland to be funded by their members, rather than by their tax-free status as a charitable institution.
I feel we’d get a better idea of the active membership of the Catholic Church if its claimed members were asked to put their money behind their convictions. – Yours, etc,
ANDREW PEREGRINE,
The Cloisters,
Terenure,
Dublin 6W.
Flaws in ’smart’ green economy
Madam, – We have demanding 2020 targets on biofuels usage set by the EU. This biofuel can be produced in Ireland and thereby create and sustain jobs, investment and associated economic activity.
Regrettably what we are getting is proposed legislation that places the biofuels market firmly in the control of established oil distribution companies. The Biofuels Obligation Scheme is a market-driven mechanism which will focus purely on the most short-term and low-cost option of importing the majority of biofuels. Imported biofuel from places such as Brazil will, as it stands, be shipped in by fuel suppliers to meet their initial target for 2010 of substituting 4 per cent of fossil fuel with biofuel. This will add little to our economy, and simply displaces one imported fuel with another.
To add insult to injury, it has emerged that the carbon tax introduced in last December’s budget is being applied to the majority of biofuels. The fine print of the carbon tax legislation stipulates that most biofuel blends will pay full carbon tax. They will be penalised to the tune of 4.5 cent/litre for their carbon content with no credit given to their biofuel content. While clearly Government policy acknowledges that biofuels lead to a net reduction in our transport carbon footprint, this latest diktat makes a mockery of the notion of a smart green economy.
Some simple common sense should come to bear and the deficiencies in our biofuels and carbon tax legislation should be rectified. – Yours, etc,
TOM BRUTON,
President of the Irish Bioenergy Association,
Rivervale,
Ashtown,
Dublin 15.
Memorial to Border bombers
Madam, – To my dismay, I recently discovered that Enniscorthy Town Council approved the instatement of a stone memorial on public space in the town honouring the 1950s IRA Border “campaign” (Home News, January 25th). In particular, the 1957 Edentubber bombers, two of whom were natives of Co Wexford.
Next I suppose we will be honouring the “brave boyos” who murdered gardaí and underpaid soldiers while carrying out their duty to the State.
The lunatics are surely now running the asylum. – Yours, etc,
COLM LAUDER,
Fountainstown,
Crosshaven, Co Cork.
Train fares North and South
Madam, – Shortly before Christmas I went to purchase a day return ticket to Drogheda. The sales assistant at Connolly station in Dublin was kind enough to inform me that a day return to Drogheda would cost €22 or I could purchase a day return to Newry costing €10 and simply alight at Drogheda. You can guess which I opted for.
I am glad to see Irish Rail doing its bit for cross-Border shopping! – Yours, etc,
ALLAN J CRANN,
Wilson’s Place, Dublin 2.
Red sky at night . . .
Madam, – On Tuesday, I drove into the sunset like a cowboy on a horse. The evening was beautiful and there was a blood red sky. I was in my element at the thought of the old adage “a red sky at night is a shepherd’s delight, a red sky in the morning is a sailor’s warning” and I looked forward to lovely sunshine on Wednesday morning. To my surprise it was dull, dark and dismal, not unlike the country’s economy. Even my old adage has has had its swansong. – Yours, etc,
TERRY HEALY,
Kill, Co Kildare.
Killing embryos in stem-cell research
Madam, – William Reville (Science Today, January 21st) reports on stem-cell research. The debate on this subject is important and should be conducted more widely in the public domain. All forms of stem-cell research need to continue and all are important. But a public debate can only be frustrated by claims of the kind Prof Reville provides.
Prof Reville claims adult stem-cell research has produced more than 200 medical treatments. This is categorically false. Even the most optimistic and open- minded researchers of adult stem-cells would not endorse that claim.
In hoping research can dispense with embryonic stem-cell research, Prof Reville also claims that adult stem-cell research and induced pluripotent stem-cell research (IPSCR) are good and ethical alternatives to embryonic stem-cell research. Yet, scientifically valid research on adult stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells normally use embryonic stem cells as a “control” in the research process.
As a scientist, Prof Reville knows this, but fails to include this relevant information. It would seriously weaken his view that embryonic stem cells are dispensable in scientific research.
Neither science nor the public interest are furthered by false claims.
Let us debate the scientific merits and ethics of stem-cell research but let us not rely on unsubstantiated evidence. – Yours, etc,
Dr DOLORES DOOLEY,
Irish Bioethics Council,
Cowper Hall,
Mount St Anne’s,
Dublin 6.
Coping with water shortages
Madam, – In response to a letter from a resident in Howth (January 26th) and the often legitimate frustration felt by residents across Dublin who have been without water over recent weeks, I want to reassure all water-users that Fingal County Council, along with its neighbouring local authorities in the Dublin region, is working extremely hard to restore a normal water supply in the region.
Throughout the recent period of extreme weather which seriously affected first our transport and then our water distribution network, one of our key priorities has been to keep people regularly and accurately informed on what this council has been doing to keep roads open and to water in our taps. At all times we have provided the best information available to us, through the greatest number of outlets possible, to help people to plan around these difficulties.
In recent weeks, providing a normal water supply in Fingal has been extremely difficult. This council has mobilised every available resource to respond to this problem and our response has extended throughout the night in many cases and over every weekend since problems began. Our work is ongoing and will continue until a normal water supply is secured in Dublin and we are extremely grateful for the continuing patience of everyone affected by this disruption.
In order to inform residents and business people as to how we are managing the water supply problem, we have provided regular accurate information updates through our website (which was updated more than 50 times), our Aertel page, we introduced Twitter on the website on January 6th (since updated 144 times), and through daily (or often more frequent) e-mails and press releases to all Fingal councillors, local TDs, local papers and local and national radio and TV stations. These updates have been issued as soon as accurate information was available, including in the evenings and throughout the weekends when supply was worst affected.
Our out-of-hours emergency telephone service has been available throughout, as is usual, providing information every evening and every weekend. The correspondent referred to his difficulties centring on a “Friday” to “Sunday”.
Information posted on Fingal County Council’s website last Friday, although issued at 5pm, was valid and relevant for Howth water supply for the entire weekend and therefore remained on our website until Monday morning. The website is regularly updated throughout the weekend.
The council, along with all other local authorities in the region, is doing everything it can to restore a normal supply to everyone. This work does not cease in the evenings or at weekends. Our efforts will continue until water supply in the region is secured. We will continue to provide updates and information as outlined.
It is not accurate to draw conclusions as to the non-availability of staff outside work hours or at the weekend, as the letter-writer did. An examination of the sequence of updates on the Twitter section on the website, complete with update times will confirm this not to be the case. The correspondent’s assertion as to the ability of “local authorities or any public body are not the people to lead; they are culturally incapable of doing so” is drawn from perceptions that, in this case, are incomplete as to the complexity of the issues involved. – Yours, etc,
DAVID O’CONNOR,
County Manager,
Fingal County Council,
Swords,
Co Dublin.
Tough on begging
Madam, – I welcome with qualification the Minister for Justice’s plan to outlaw “aggressive begging” in new laws (Home News, January 27th). This practice is used as a cynical guilt-trip, is damaging to tourism, and often intimidating, especially when conducted at bank ATMs. Left unchallenged it also encourages some to see begging as a legitimate career choice.
However, its prohibition should only be part of a balanced plan to tackle persistent poverty and income inequality in Irish society. Anything less is likely to be perceived as heartless in a time of need for many. It’s time to be tough on begging, tough on the causes of begging! – Yours, etc,
NIGEL RYAN,
The Gallery,
Donabate, Co Dublin.
A quay by any other name?
Madam, – I have been reading with interest recent correspondence regarding the renaming of Victoria Quay in Dublin, and the possible acknowledgment of the contribution of Guinness to the city. It’s a little-known fact that a quay in Dublin’s docklands was in fact to be named with reference to Guinness; unfortunately in the naming process, the letter G was omitted, and it became known as Hanover Quay. – Yours, etc,
BRENDAN TREACY.
Drumree, Co Meath.

Well I must be off

best wishes John